We Love You, Bunny - 3

Just then, Kyra came down again. Pale, very pale. She looked smaller than before.

“Well?” we all hissed as one voice.

“He’s ours,” she said. “At least, I’m pretty sure he is. But…”

“ But ?”

“I think…”

“WHAT?”

“We have to get rid of him. Or something.” She looked like she was going to cry.

“ What do you mean get rid of him ?” Vik glanced at me.

“He’s dangerous. He’s a threat .” She was red in the face, looking at the floor. I recalled his skipping across the garden with a razor swinging in his fist.

“That’s absurd,” I said.

She looked at me. “He really does want to kill Allan. For real.”

Coraline snorted. “ Everyone wants to kill Allan though. So I don’t know if that actually counts as anything but him being perfectly rational?”

“The bottom line is that he’s violent,” Kyra whispered. “And if we don’t kill him now, he might run off and do something terrible. And I’m sorry, but I just don’t want that on my conscience, okay, Bunny? We need to be pragmatic here. Ethical. Think about the greater good.”

“ Ethical ?” Coraline repeated. “Wait, little miss I-don’t-want-to-go-to-fucking-jail-because-I’ll-miss-my-typewriter is talking murder of a human being?”

“He’s not human, Bunny,” she said.

“What is he then?”

Kyra shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. A monster. A sociopath maybe.”

Coraline smacked her. Right across the face. “Don’t you DARE call him that.”

Kyra didn’t even flinch. She just stroked her own cheek, smiled a little now. “There’s something else. He knows things, Bunny.”

I could feel myself pale then. Saw the color drain from each of our faces. Our hearts quicken. Knows things? What fucking things, Bunny?

“About us.”

Coraline’s eyes went wide. “Like what ?” We watched her blotchy white gloved hands tighten into fists.

Kyra kept smiling. “Why don’t you go on up there and ask him, Bunny? Or go get murdered by a maniac. Up to you, totally.”

Coraline looked at Kyra, grinning at her now like I dare you . “Fine,” she said. Took another long of swig of her vodka Fog. “You read my mind actually.”

“Bunny, wait,” and she reached out and grabbed Coraline’s arm. “It really is dangerous.” I saw the love on her face then. Coraline softened and then grew colder at the sight.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she sniffed. “I mean he’s got my pearls on his neck for Christ’s sake, doesn’t he?”

“And your razor in his pocket,” Kyra whispered.

But Coraline was already clip clopping up the stairs two at a time, humming to herself.

She was gone for longer than Kyra. Again, we pricked up our collective ears as we waited, more impatiently this time, all of us on edge. “I have an axe,” Kyra was whispering to the floor. “My father showed me how to chop wood with it, said I was actually pretty pro. Before I left, he told me to take it with me in case of break ins, rapists, you never know, my dear. You’re going to Warren after all .”

“If she doesn’t come down in five minutes, we should check on her, probably,” Vik said to me, ignoring Kyra. “Just in case she’s being, you know, murdered.”

“Probably,” I agreed solemnly.

Thirty more minutes passed. At last Coraline came down looking very much the same. We could tell she’d had more to drink. Her bob slightly askew, cheeks flushed. But her gloves were still on. “Well?” we all asked.

And she looked at us like she’d forgotten we were there. “He said he’d like to come live with me in my apartment,” she said dreamily.

“ What ?”

“Just because it gets better light. I mean it really does, Bunny. You can’t get mad about architecture.” We watched her refill her drink, humming.

“What about the fact that he’s dangerous?” Kyra said.

“Well we can’t be responsible for that. I mean he’s his own person, isn’t he?” She was smiling. “He’s a…free spirit.”

“Who wants to KILL Allan.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s really going to do that, Bunny.” She was still biting on her grin. “I mean, he’s wearing a velvet blazer for fuck’s sake, okay? He’s not a predator . Bunnies aren’t predators, that’s just…science.” She settled back down on the loveseat with her drink, tucking her feet under the bell of her dress like she was in a 1950s film. This was the decade in which she would live for the rest of her life, with varying degrees of self-awareness about this fact. And then I saw the blood on her right shoulder. The word freshly carved there. Aerius , it said.

“What about the things he knows?” Kyra whispered.

And Coraline looked at us. Paled briefly. Only then did her smile twitch. “That’s exactly why he should live in my apartment. Not only does it have more light, it has more locks. So that everything he knows stays with me. With us. Forever.” She drank moodily from her cup.

Vik grinned. “I’m going up there.”

Coraline and Kyra protested wildly but I just stood there. As you know, I’ve never been one to waste my energy, Bunny. Always been one to bide my time. I just watched Vik dash up the stairs before anyone could stop her.

Again, we waited. Again, silence, except for Coraline who was humming a baleful indie tune about a mermaid dragging you under. And Kyra still mumbling about her dear axe. It was in the closet, she whispered. It was freshly sharpened. Meanwhile I attempted to attune myself, uselessly, to what was going on above our heads with Vik. She came back down at last. Hair slightly disarrayed. Eyes shining. Mouth open and grinning in a way that made me feel somewhat dirty, Bunny, to behold it.

“So?”

“Oh he’s ours all right,” she said.

Coraline smiled and Kyra frowned. Yes. He is .

“ And ?”

“I say we keep him for a while. Maybe actually bring him back to my place for a bit? Because I have that yard. But yeah, that’s my vote. Keep.”

And of course when she said the word keep I heard the true word with our hive mind which was fuck . We fuck him. I fuck him . I saw the beginnings of a hickey on her neck. Some claw marks on her forearms, brazenly displayed for our viewing pleasure.

“You’re disgusting,” Coraline hissed, going pink.

Vik grinned at Coraline, walked over to her. “You’re telling me you don’t want to keep him, Bunny? Bring him to your place?”

“Just for better light . Kyra’s attic has a lot of dust and I’m concerned.”

“Better light, huh? You don’t think he’s incredibly hot?” she said, moving in closer to Coraline. “You don’t want to bring him into your blue bedroom and see what he can do with that razor of yours?” she whispered into her neck.

“NO!”

“Well I fucking do,” she said, stroking Coraline’s face. “Those pearls. That chest. My god, my god,” Vik said. Pretended to faint. “We’re good. Is all I have to say.”

“But he’s not human , Bunny,” Kyra cried from the sidelines.

“Oh he’s human enough,” Vik said grinning at her. “Trust me. Anyway, aren’t you the one who fucks Entities?”

“Not literally! Metaphorically , I do!”

“Well this isn’t a fucking metaphor , Bunny.”

“Oh my god,” Coraline whispered to Vik, closing her eyes. “You fucked him already didn’t you?”

Vik patted Coraline’s hair. “Calm down, Bunny. You two can still take turns about the room drinking Lady Grey. We can share, how’s that?” She grinned at Coraline who blushed afresh.

“Disgusting,” Kyra hissed. “You want to make him your sex slave?”

“If he’s into it, why not? At least I don’t want to kill him.”

“What about what he knows, Vik?” I asked. “What about that?”

And only then did Vik’s confident smile crack. Only then did she look at me like oh yeah. Right. That.

“I have an axe,” Kyra whispered to the floor.

All this talk of ownership and yes, murder, was making me just a hair uncomfortable, Bunny. As you can surely appreciate. My peers seemed to have forgotten once more that I was even in the room. This often happens when I am attempting to Look Within for the Key. When my eyes close and my Third Eye opens, it’s true that I do become a kind of invisible. It was a feeling I experienced at family events, where my sister was the Star and me a mere Moon. How she’d smile drunkenly at the endless praise heaped upon her person for doing what? Just what a dusty medical textbook told her to do, Samantha. Meanwhile I brooded alone in the shadows, the sky positively electric, ringing with my impending Will.

As my peers discussed amongst themselves, I took the opportunity, Bunny, to go up and see our charge for myself. Kyra seeing me go, peeled away from Coraline and Vik, still taunting/flirting with each other, to hand me her axe. “Just in case he tries to murder you, Bunny,” she whispered. “You can murder him first.” She pressed it into my hands before I could say, Don’t be fucking stupid. I don’t believe in murder. Besides, if you all didn’t need it, why do I?

Yet I took it from her.

He had been silent for some time, I noted. Not a scream had bled down to us through the ceiling. Not a whimper or even a whisper. I could no longer hear his heart beating in my head. Though my peers had spoken of him with some urgency that told me he was up there, of course he was up there, we had locked him in there ourselves—still, there was a part of me that couldn’t, wouldn’t believe until I saw with my own eyes.

Dark when I opened the door. No sign of him at first in the dog and wolf light of evening, the room itself mostly awash in black. Panic gripped me briefly.

“Hello?” I deigned to call out, a wavering in my voice.

No answer. The axe, Bunny, was heavy in my hand, but I was glad for it now.

And then I saw him in the corner, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Staring out at the darkening blue sky through the triangle window, his waves catching the last of the sky’s light. A visceral itch to run my fingers through them. Fiercely. Never stopping. My fingers hummed with this itch. Oh he was mine. As soon as I saw his hunched silhouette, certainty returned to me. I dropped my axe. That he was mine was a fact as indelible as the sun in the sky or rainbows after rain. The clatter didn’t even rouse him, so lost in looking out the window. As I approached, I noted, with not a little rage, that my peers had each left their mark upon his person. His hair had been half-braided, clearly by Coraline. Cherries in Winter freshly applied to his lips with Kyra’s try-hard hand. A smile-shaped hickey on his neck and Vik’s horndog mouth responsible.

“How…are you?” I asked. With feeling, Bunny. Nothing but concern for his well-being in my heart. And some trepidation, thinking of Coraline’s razor in his pocket. I didn’t know whether to sit or stand. Finally, I just sort of half-crouched before him.

He turned to stare at me. Still saying nothing. Yet seeing my soul, I felt. The animal gleam in his eye was too much to look at directly. He had grown rabbity in captivity.

“Aerius,” I whispered. “Please. You’re among friends.”

He looked away from me. Hung his head rather sadly. He was surrounded by limp dandelions, all of them untouched. The plate of mini confections, the electrolyte water, also untouched. The little teacup turned over, the herbal pink mulch bleeding into the floorboards. Only the absinthe had been consumed.

“Are you not hungry?”

Silence.

“Thirsty?”

Still silence.

“Perhaps you’d like a dandelion…” I picked one up from the floor, held it up and twirled it for him, feeling like a fucking witch. He stared at me.

“I really hope you’re comfortable,” I insisted, sort of stammering. “It’s not like my apartment of course,” I heard myself say idiotically. “Perhaps you’d like to go there with me instead. You could meet my dogs. We could…talk. Get to know one another better.” What was I even saying, Bunny? I had no idea. My hands were clasped together like I was praying, like I was pleading with him. Still he stared at me, something like anger or was it fear in his eyes? Hard to say, only one eye illuminated in the black, his hair hiding the other. He too had a bitch curtain, Samantha, disconcertingly quite like yours.

“I hope you know,” I began again. “That we—that I…love you.”

“Love?” He turned away to look out the window. Is that what this is, Mother? Trapping me up here? Keeping me locked away like this? “Aerius is tricked,” he whispered. His speech, Bunny. It moved me in spite of myself. He was so terribly articulate, even if gravely mistaken.

“Sometimes when you love, you have to trick,” I said softly.

“Why?”

“Because the world is a very cruel place.”

“Cru-elle,” he repeated softly.

“And stupid and ignorant,” I added, thinking of Allan. “And if we were to release you now, you would be left to fend for yourself. And we wouldn’t be there to…protect you, to explain about you.”

He stared at me again. “How very special you are,” I said, smiling like a psychopath.

He pulled a tube of lipstick from his pocket. Applied it thoughtfully to his lips, looking at me as though I was a mirror. Perhaps I was. “And dangerous?” he asked.

“ Dangerous ?” I laughed. “I don’t believe that at all. I mean, you don’t really want to kill Allan, do you?”

“Kill Allan,” he whispered, growing serious.

“I didn’t think so. But Kyra also mentioned you know some things. About us.”

He looked away from me then, Bunny. Lowered his eyes.

“What do you know,” I pressed. “About me for instance?”

“Know?” Like suddenly he didn’t understand the word, Bunny. Oh but he did. He shook his head but I saw it in his eyes. My Shadow Self. All of our Shadow Selves, in fact. Four figures cowering in the black of his iris. “Aerius would like to back go to the garden now,” he said.

“Not,” I said, “until you tell Mother what you know about her.”

He pressed his cherry lips together tight. I saw Coraline’s primness in him then. Or was it Kyra’s defiance? Or was it the fuck you in Vik’s eyes? My own mark was there too, of course—that said I will make the clouds storm with my anger, I will brighten the sky with my loving care .

He took the dandelion from me and twirled it between his fingers. Kept his mouth shut.

Fine , I thought. Walked away from him then. Keep your secret s.

“Northwestern ,” he whispered from behind me.

I grew cold then, Bunny. What?

I looked at him, suddenly standing before me, grinning now.

“We had such alchemical aspirations.”

I felt myself pale. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head.

“We believed we could reimagine the Sciences,” he said, moving in closer. “Transform the whole of Medicine with our Witchery. Best our bitch sister at med school. Alas,” and here he leaned in, placed his hands on either side of my now trembling face. “The Admissions Committee regrets,” he said tenderly.

“NO!”

He smiled. “ I must get into Warren, Mother! If I can’t get into any med school, at the very fucking least, I should be able to get a lowly WRITING deg— ”

“NO NO NO!” I tried to stop up my ears, but he was holding me fast, beaming.

“ Call the Provost! A favor, don’t they owe us? ”

But I heard no more of his words, Bunny, because I was screaming. My mouth stretched open, crying “STOP!” Oh but he didn’t stop, Bunny. Instead his eyes lit up, like someone had flipped a switch inside of him, turned him from Off to On. He began jumping up and down delightedly. Screaming the many cruel names I’d been called by my enemies from junior high onward. Not to mention the many egregious lies and rumors that have always surrounded my person. I won’t share those with you, obviously, Samantha, except to say that his deep knowledge of my secret psychic wounds, the visceral delight he took in my pain, well, it unmoored me. It fascinated me too. For his eyes never looked more beautiful than when they were alive with my Shadow Self, than when he was spewing my soul’s detritus in my face. I watched helplessly, as he ran ecstatic circles around me in his night dress, which was most definitely my night dress, Samantha. I saw the Free People tag sticking out of his back collar, flapping in the breeze he made. The fabric was covered in grass stains, the hem irreversibly torn. “DO WE LOOK OPRAH FRIENDLY TO YOU?” he was shouting now. “KILL ALLAN KILL ALLAN KILL ALLAN!”

I looked down, and there was the axe in my hands again. I’d picked it up off the floor, was gripping it tight. Trembling, I raised it now, high above my head. Though it pained me, I was ready to strike.

Now you may well wonder, Samantha, why I’m sharing this shameful exchange with you at all. Quite uncharacteristically vulnerable of me, I know. I’m giving you the vulnerability , I suppose. Which I know you just love. You did that in your little novel, didn’t you? Playing up your “working class” background, your outsiderness, your ambiguous sexuality. Just dying to show us the many warts on your soul. I tend not to stoop to such psychic manipulations in my own storytelling, Bunny. I’ve only shared, in this instance, for the higher sake of Story. For the sake of Art. So that you understand that he was indeed MINE. And though much of what he ejaculated was a mere echo or exaggeration or a damning lie, I knew he knew the Shadow. His words cut right to the heart, over which my dagger sits eternally. For whoever cuts me to the heart, will also be cut, Samantha, Oh yes.

Now where was I?

Noticing the axe raised in my hands, he froze abruptly in the middle of his run. Stared at me, shocked. Mother how could you?

Knock, knock on the door just then.

“Bunny are you okay?” they called up.

“Bunny um should we fucking come up there?”

“Bunny, hi, are you making out with him or murdering him up there? Don’t murder him, k? Or make out with him. Not before we discuss.”

I looked at him. He was panting before me, his dress drenched with sweat just as mine was. I could feel his rabbit-y heart pounding in own chest like it was my own fucking heart. I looked at him, this crude masterpiece. Breathing as I was breathing. The same fucking breaths, it felt like. To kill him in that moment, Samantha, would have been liking hack into my own flesh.

“Fine,” I told the floorboards, lowering my axe. “I’ll be right down.” I turned away from him, started walking toward the attic steps. Then I heard him whisper, “Please.” I turned back and found him crouched near my feet. “Let Aerius go.”

“Go where?” I said coldly. I heard the cold in my voice. My father telling me I could not leave my room, did I understand?

“Trust,” he whispered.

Trust? I looked at his beautiful throat, strangled by Coraline’s pearls, a veritable dog collar. Voice box filled with how many more lies and secrets, how many more social wounds and mind fragments. Far too dangerous , Kyra had said and now I understood why. Of course the thought of killing him brought tears to my eyes. I did not wish to kill a being with such incredible cheek bones, with such exquisite face symmetry that eerily resembled my own (the others will never admit this resemblance, Samantha, by the way).

Right then he saw the murder I was thinking about, the gleam it gave to my eye. He held up the razor uselessly. He would not use it against me, somehow I sensed this. Strangely, it even aroused me, though certainly this was Coraline’s fantasy (her doing) not mine.

“Aerius goes where Aerius goes,” he whispered, threateningly, but also pleadingly, like I might have asked my mother, so long ago, to go outside and play.

12

“He needs revision,” is what I said to my fellow peers when pressed. Back in the living room, I snatched Coraline’s Vodka Fog and drank down the vile concoction. I desperately needed a drink after that, Bunny. The screaming in the attic continued above our heads. As did the jumping.

“ Revision ?” they repeated.

“ Work ,” I shouted. They stared at me. “ Civilizing if you like.”

“Civilizing?” Vik repeated, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know. I sort of like him as he is. Wild. All over the place. I say we let him go and see what happens.”

“I say we cut our losses,” Kyra whispered, petting the axe handle. “Start fresh. Who’s to say we can’t do it again and better next time?”

Coraline was shaking her head. “No. No letting go . No murdering . Let me please just take him to my place and—”

And I screamed, Bunny. It was a yogic trill, a call to attention, my voice reverberating like a most holy bell. This time they all fell silent. Stared at me. I smiled. I have always been able to take a particular kind of psychic charge, Samantha, as you know. “Look,” I said wisely, “I’ve assessed the situation. He and I had a very long… talk up there. And I agree with Kyra that sadly in his current state, he poses a significant threat.”

“To Allan?”

“Fuck Allan. To us . He’s far too…unhinged. Raw. Not to be… trusted at this stage.”

And they all nodded uncomfortably. Yes . Perhaps recalling seeing their own Shadow Selves lurking in his eyes. Though surely none had experienced my degree of encounter.

“So we kill him?” Kyra said hopefully.

“ No .”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t just kill what we make, Bunny.” I flashed to myself in the attic, the axe trembling above my head. “We’re artists, graduate scholars for fuck’s sake. We were just given a most incredible gift. Possibly from God. Do you want to spit in the eye of God?”

“So…what do we do then?”

“We love ,” I said. “Nurture. Teach as only we can. We do the difficult but ultimately very rewarding work of making him better.”

Vik sighed. “I fucking hate revision.”

“Me too,” Kyra said. “Also how do we revise a human being? If he’s even human, Bunny. I mean we don’t even know what he—”

“Forget what he IS or WAS! Think about what he could be .”

We all fell silent for a spell. Pondered.

“Maybe we could give him some of our own writing to read or something,” Coraline ventured at last. Staring into the fire, who’d started a fire? Don’t know but there it was in burning before our eyes. “So he can…” she blushed furiously, shook her head at the flames. “Get to know us better. Maybe if he gets to know us, he’ll stop screaming so much.”

“Or wanting to kill Allan so much.”

I thought of him perusing my many proems. If he were given the opportunity to sit with them for a while, surely—

“He’d learn to understand us,” Vik said quietly, finishing my thought. “Grasp our intentions .” She smirked at the word.

“Not to mention our individual concerns,” Kyra added, still petting the axe.

“We could put some of our favorite books up there too,” Coraline added, sitting up now. “He could read them and we could discuss them together. Reading always broadens your horizons, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” we all agreed, nodding. “Enriches your insides, absolutely. It always helps the Work to read. Breaks it open. Brings it to another level. Sharpens the language so to speak.”

Screams over our heads now.

“Speaking of another level, maybe we could make him a playlist or something,” Kyra offered. “Include our favorite songs.”

“Oh my god, I’ve always wanted to do that,” Coraline sighed. “For a…project.”

“Not all Taylor Swift please though, Bunny,” Kyra whispered to Coraline.

“Um, or fucking Enya,” Coraline hissed back at her. “Or Lana please,” she added more quietly, turning to Vik.

“Or Kate,” Vik said pointedly looking and then not looking at me.

I ignored this. “Kyra, you have that projector. What about film? How wonderful for him to have audio visual models of ideal behavior playing on the walls at all hours. To give him a sense of our souls and such.”

“We should put some porn up there too,” Vik said. “Female directed and/or gay. Just so you know, he has everything.”

“And maybe we should get him other clothes?” Kyra said to me. “Not that I don’t love the white nightgown, Bunny. Very Kate Bush circa 1978. But he could have some other looks.”

A rage ticked in me then. Sky blackening. But I gathered myself. Smiled and said, “Absolutely. Definitely we’ll take that under consideration. We’re all in this together, after all. This is a collective . We’re gathering ideas here. Brainstorming.”

A clap of thunder outside. As though God had heard us, Bunny, and She, They, It—whatever the fuck—was on our side, also storming.

The screaming ceased.

And except for the rain, all was silent above our heads.

13

And so? We did our best to revise him, Bunny. To improve, add dimension, some layers so to speak. Over the next weeks, we slid our many stories and vignettes and proems through the trap door. We smiled to think of him up there perusing our pages and panes. Loved to imagine where he might laugh or cry or simply be taken by us. How he might be enchanted by a certain word or phrase. Or by our particular genius more generally, our keen poetic sensibilities. We slid our very favorite books through the door too, dog earing pages, underlining particular passages of import and making pointed notes in the margins with our cerulean LePens. This we wrote, drawing an arrow, sometimes a heart, by the just-so words.

“We do hope you enjoy,” we whispered to him, leaving these books and pages near his feet, while he just stared at us silently from his dark corner, Bunny, surrounded by the many untouched foods we’d also lovingly provided. Glowered at us until at last we turned away and sighed and shut the door.

We really did hope for the best, Bunny. Hoped it might all somehow sink in. Hoped we might find him changed by our multi-pronged efforts. That one day we might come up to the attic and find that he looked upon us with love and understanding rather than a kind of visceral animal alarm, a bewildered fear-hate. That on the subject of our proems and books, he’d have many thoughts. Rather than a silence, Bunny, that was fucking deafening. Rather than to find his cherry lips pressed shut in a way that felt almost willful. Defiant. As fuck you as Vik’s eyes. We hoped for dialogue, gratitude. Instead we found our texts quite ripped up, likely by his own teeth. All the pages we’d placed so lovingly within his reading view torn into so much paper snow. Others he appeared to have eaten or shat on in the interim. And seemed quite happy about this fact. In fact, it was only when we were deeply devastated or angry, that he ever looked pleased. Seemed to come alive at all. A light in his eyes then, such beautiful eyes he had, Bunny. Yet still disconcertingly full of our Shadow Selves. Our most filthy secrets.

Did we have to tie him up a little, Samantha? Sort of like we tied you up? Yes, sadly we did in the end. In this very chair you’re sitting on in fact, isn’t that funny? Just to keep him up here, to keep him with us. So he didn’t try to run away into the cold cruel world that just wasn’t ready for him, Bunny. So he didn’t jump up and down above our heads, giving us such a fucking headache after two minutes. We couldn’t afford the headache, we needed our minds now more than ever before. Did we gag him too? We did gag him a little, sure. Just from time to time. But again, with very good reason. The constant screaming would have alarmed Kyra’s neighbors, who were already sort of suspicious of us, Bunny. Always fucking staring at us whenever we skipped past their window, laughing and singing arm in arm (for all in all, it was a most happy October). We really didn’t want those puritan assholes knocking on the door at this particular juncture in the Process, did we? What would we have even said, can you imagine? We laugh to think about it now. So sorry for screaming, but um, we’re just in the middle of a highly experimental creative writing project. We’re just performing an act of the most deep and dire Love. We’re scholars, you see, and unlike you, dying slowly before your televisions, we’re trying to make something of ourselves and our lives. To make something fucking beautiful that loves us. “Please love us,” we pleaded with him .

In the evenings, one of us might play a film for him, chosen from a collectively agreed upon selection of New Waves, classics and contemporary independents. And, upon the urgings of Coraline, the melodramas and screwball rom coms of the 40s and 50s. Though Vik was adamant about adding porn to the mix—it was a basic human right, she said—we told her let’s hold off on that for now , Bunny . Sometimes we’d sit beside him while the film played, but mostly not, due to his disconcerting sounds of protest, which broke our hearts more than we can say. More oft than not, we’d leave him alone to watch the moving picture on the wall. Sometimes watching him watch from the staircase, we liked to do that. Just to see what, if any impression, it was making upon his soul. He was always better to watch than the film, Samantha. Better than any fucking film, really. His living breathing body, crouched there in the dark. The light from the screen playing on his face, bright eyes wide open in a kind of haunted wonder. That’s when I took in him a kind of fiery pride. That’s when my hopes for him were highest. Fucking look at him , I whispered. In fact, we all whispered these words at the very same time. Sometimes he appeared quite lost in the story, quite moved. Kyra said I was projecting but what the fuck did she know, Bunny? His favorite film was Frankenstein , understandably so. His eyes brightened whenever the monster filled the screen. He stomped on the floorboards, even grunted along with the creature. Screamed along with him too at the horribleness of humanity. Through the gag, Bunny, obviously.

There were days of course, when he refused the cinematic delights we offered up like our hearts. Refused even though he must have been so very bored up there. Still he closed his eyes and hung his shaking head. “Let’s just put him out of his misery,” Kyra might hiss then.

“Let’s let him go,” Coraline countered. “To my place maybe. I keep telling you, he’ll do better in a space where he can get more light.”

“I think one of us should offer up our bodies,” Vik sighed. “Probably me because I can handle his animal nature.”

“NO,” we all screamed. “Revision is a Process, remember. Patience is key.”

At these times we played music for him on a Bose speaker. Our tender and thoughtfully made Playlist to which we had all contributed our most cherished songs. Because music soothes the savage Beast. Or is it savage breast? Well, either/or.

In this way, we inundated him with our souls daily. So he really he had no choice but to internalize them. Internalize us , in some way. If he chose not to peruse our pages or open our beloved books, if he closed his eyes to the moving pictures on the wall, our sound at least would speak to him. He could only stop up his ears so much.

Surely, he would be moved by us in some form, we thought.

But progress was a Journey, Samantha. A Collective is not easy, as you yourself know. Did we sometimes disagree about the evening’s film choice? About the order of the playlist songs or which text he might imbibe next? Of course we fucking did, order being so crucial to Outcome and Effect.

On the subject of his diet too, we were not always of One Mind. Coraline, of course, wanted to give him sweets almost exclusively. It might make him sweeter , she reasoned. More polite. Less murdery. Pixie Stix, for instance, might be a good antidote to his constant refrain of Kill Allan . Swedish Fish, too, for color and chew. Pinkberry with all manner of toppings, but especially rainbow sprinkles, Bunny, because so pretty. Every mini muffin they sold at Mini and could they please make more kinds, she implored, perhaps carrot or freesia-flavored? He really enjoys baked goods , she told us, bearing a plate full of confections up to the attic. He told me.

And in truth, Bunny, we suspected he’d told her no such thing.

Kyra on the other hand, was all about organic produce. He’s a creature, after all , she reminded us. A vegan , and we should feed him as such. If we fed him only heirloom lettuces and carrots from Whole Foods, then he might revert naturally to his non-predatorial nature. Sometimes she’d add a mini peanut butter cup to his tray since he also really seemed to like those, she said. Though honestly, Bunny, I never saw anyone but her partake.

Vik, on the other hand, thought all of this was fucking absurd. She wanted to feed him whatever the fuck she picked from the mud on the way over to Kyra’s. A clump of weeds. Grasses. A flower bitten through with frost. What he wants is the dirt , she said obscenely.

And I? I confess I felt a juice cleanse or two might do him good. Surely after his rabbit to human transformation, he was sorely in need of replenishing electrolytes. Each day, I went to the nearby juice bar, purchased a veritable rainbow of elixirs for him to choose from.

Yet despite our best efforts, he mostly refused to eat. Our candy, our muffins, our grasses and dandelions and plethora of fruit essence, it was all the same to him.

Fucking nothing.

He’s getting thinner , one of us would inevitably report whenever we came down from the attic. Not drinking at all from his cup of stars (my own humble gift). Not even partaking of the freesia and cowslips we’d stolen from the Botanical Gardens, which we learned rabbits eat from revisiting Watership Down , a timeless classic.

During this time, we continued to go to Workshop, of course we did. It was hilarious under the circumstances. We smiled, inwardly, whenever Allan told us we needed to really push ourselves a bit more creatively. Okay Bunny , we thought. Thanks. We’ll, um, be sure to make a note of that. The week after my useless Workshop, in fact, Allan pulled me aside, to (shudder) check in . “Everything all right, Elsinore?” he wondered. Playing the oh-so-concerned professor. He sincerely hoped my allergies were okay? That I’d gotten them all under control?

“Oh yes,” I said, “Absolutely under control, Allan. Reining them in as we speak.”

I smiled, picturing Aerius running his homicidal circles in the attic.

“Oh good. Well, I hope Workshop was helpful in the end?”

“In the end? Absolutely. Just doing some revision right now actually.”

“Revision,” he repeated, looking mildly impressed. “Really? And how is that going?”

“It’s a process of course. Sometimes, I actually feel like it’s going to kill me.” I laughed

here. “Or someone else,” I said, looking at Allan. He smiled strangely.

“Sounds like you’re cutting pretty close to the bone, Elsinore,” he said in a low voice.

You have no idea, Allan.

Was it hard to keep a straight face in Workshop with what we had gestating in the attic? It was, Bunny. A smile might creep across my lips at the most inopportune times, like when you or Allan were criticizing me, for instance, for not being dimensional enough. That word always made me laugh on the inside, Bunny, and sometimes on the outside too. Or whenever the word reality was mentioned. Or alive . As in I wish this were a little more alive on the page . More visceral. Then the laughter would almost explode from one of us like flatulence. Did you notice us laughing, Samantha? Yes, I suppose you did. It was very hard to contain, given the circumstances. Our laughter was as visceral and wild as the boy in the attic, shitting freesia on our floorboards, probably as we spoke. Likely it added to your enmity toward us. Another lump of coal for your hate. But we couldn’t help it, Bunny.

That October, there was a kind of singing in our heads always. Our playlist on continuous loop in our minds. The air outside was a new kind of sweet. The colors of the world were more vivid to our eyes. An iridescent dreaminess crept into our souls. No matter what stupid shit you were saying or Allan was saying or what stupid reading he’d assigned for the week (usually a short story or novel full of murder and philosophy), we could all sort of think, whatever . Because we had other things to discuss. Things of great import. Like, did he read or eat the Austen this time? And what about the Woolf? Does he appear to have internalized our marginal musings on the Diaries ? What about The Waves ?

“Oh yes quite literally, Bunny,” Coraline might report. “He also appears to have eaten The Bell Jar . As well as two copies of Jane Eyre .”

“But what did he make of the Borges?” I asked eagerly. For this particular text had been my own humble suggestion.

“We are not sure, Bunny,” Kyra said. “When we asked him this question, he only screamed. Screamed so very loudly we actually thought our ear drums would burst. We are actually very surprised our neighbors didn’t finally complain or even call the police. Perhaps they did and now they are on their way.”

Kyra had made such claims before, of course. That the boy had screamed so loudly, surely the neighbors would knock on the door this time. Or the police would finally come. But the police never came, Bunny. And the neighbors never once knocked. Which is maybe something to sadly keep in mind for your own situation here. That no matter how much he screamed and jumped, how many times we had to chase him around the attic, The Work , as it were, continued undisturbed. Reassuring for us, definitely, but maybe not so much for you right now. At the time, we did wonder about the lack of intervention or even comment from the outside world. We wondered about it during his screams, but we wondered about it even more during his silences. When the infernal sounds of his struggle ceased, nothing bleeding down from the ceiling but the dreamy harps and guitars of our own playlist, and we all sat in silence in the living room, we asked ourselves: are we fucking crazy? Was this a collective hallucination? A psychic byproduct of perhaps spending too much time together? It was strange that whenever we were away from him, even for just a very short time, we sort of ceased to believe that he was actually tied up there in the attic, eating our Duras page by page.

“Well, perhaps it touched him,” I offered now. Re-anchoring myself in the present moment. Kyra’s living room. An Octobral dusk. All of us sitting in a circle around a fire that seemed to always be burning brightly, Bunny. “The Borges.”

“Perhaps,” my fellow peers agreed uneasily.

“And what does he make of the many films we have shown?” I asked, turning to Vik, changing the subject. “Has he spoken of them to you? Has he pontificated?”

Vik stared at me, in my vanity eyewear and raw silk conjuring dress, my silver hair pinned back by so many birds of paradise. My notepad on my knee and my feather pen in my fist, its amethyst ink dripping on to the empty white face of the page. I knew that, inwardly, she was starting to resist my revision project. It was, she thought, like attempting to turn a field of wild flowers into the “fucking botanical gardens.” Or a boreal forest into a gated park of pruned trees. She wanted nothing more than to take Aerius back to her basement apartment and fuck him (consensually, she always insisted) in her yard full of weeds. I could not trust, in fact, that she wasn’t already fucking him in the attic whenever it was her turn to read him Derrida (her text selection). She took a very long time up there, each time. It made Coraline crazy.

“Oh he’s pontificated, Bunny,” Vik whispered. “In his nonverbal language of course.”

“Of course,” I nodded. Aerius hadn’t spoken actual words since that awful day in the attic. Never spoke except to scream. I knew of course that he was quite articulate, was probably already familiar with the literature and films and music we were sharing with him. He was only choosing to refuse us. Which pained me.

“And what of our own work?” I pressed. “What does he make of that?”

“He’s made a sort of confetti of it, Bunny,” Coraline reported sadly. “It covers the attic floor like so much snow. He has left rabbit droppings on some of the untorn pages. Very grassy, which is odd because he still won’t touch the grass we give him, let alone eat it.”

“Won’t touch the grass? Why not? Perhaps you’re not pulling it from the earth by its root so that it maintains its grassy freshness?”

A darkness in my peer’s face then. A defensiveness. Perhaps you could feed him once in a while. If you’re so fucking concerned, Bunny. Perhaps you should go on up and check on him yourself. This whole “revision” thing being your idea and all.

But I much preferred to give directions from afar, to distill feedback on his reported progress. I did the arguably far more difficult work of conceptualizing, blueprinting, making recommendations. I was a general, my peers the mere army. I drank kombucha, tapped into my crown Chakra, consulted the tarot at every twilight time. The Fool, I almost always drew from the deck. I stared into his laughing enigmatic face and wondered dreamily, What next ?

Then of course came the night we’ll never forget, Samantha. Samhain. Halloween as it’s called by the plebeians, which we’re happily celebrating with you right now. We were sitting in Kyra’s living room, pondering. Vik was up in the attic, taking her very sweet time with him as usual. Enraging the hell out of Coraline.

“WHAT is she fucking DOING up there?” Coraline roared, pacing the floor. She was wearing a dress patterned with an absurd profusion of spring flowers so as to be more appealing to Aerius. “It’s been an hour,” she said, tapping her wrist in the manner of Ursula, where there was no watch at all. “Now it’s been TWO hours. Oh my god.” And she covered her eyes pitifully with her white gloved hands.

“Calm down, Bunny,” Kyra whispered, patting her back. Looking ridiculous (though admittedly sexy) in a pair of cat ears that Coraline had drunkenly plopped on her head earlier. Coraline now shook her off.

“I will not calm down. Not while my creation is potentially being violated .”

“ Your creation?”

“ Ours , okay, Bunny?” But her eyes said, Mine . MINE MINE MINE . It rang through all our bodies like a banshee cry.

“Let me get you a drink, Bunny. Would you like that?”

Coraline held her champagne flute up for the gin cocktail to be poured, Just fucking pour it to the brim, Bunny , I could feel her thinking. Not even looking at Kyra.

“How about an orange peel? Or a rosemary sprig? Like you like.” Kyra, ever the thoughtful hostess. Look what a wonderful hostess I’m being, Bunny , her mind said, even though you’re being just a bit of a bitch right now .

“I don’t WANT a fucking peel, Bunny. Or a SPRIG.”

“What do you want, Bunny?”

I saw for a shimmer of a moment, in her misty eyes, what she wanted. In all its gross petal pink shades. She shook her head, collapsed into expected tears, surfacing now and then to take gulpfuls of gin. Kyra, patting her humped back, looked at me. Do you see how he is destroying us, Bunny? We have an axe, don’t forget. It is freshly sharpened, for I have been sharpening it each day since he came into our lives, since this whole mess began. Let’s please put an end to this now and start fresh. She looked at the attic door, at the empty hook where she’d begun to hang the axe for easy access. Vik must have taken it with her to the attic.

“All right, that’s enough,” Coraline said. “I’m fucking going up there.”

“ No Bunny. We’re supposed to give each other creative space, remember?”

And Coraline bit her lip. Yes. This was what we had indeed agreed upon. That we’d each have our individual time with him. Get to know him. Let him get to know us. Respect that, we must. But her face said she didn’t care. Not today, Bunny. Not tonight. Yet just as she was about to charge up the stairs, the attic door opened. Down came grinning Vik. Her auburn tresses in great disarray, stinking of freesia and biting on a grin a mile fucking wide, Bunny.

“Ladies,” she said, doffing an invisible cap. And we could feel her mind going oh my oh my oh my .

Coraline’s flute cracked in her hand. “What happened up there? What did you do to him?”

“Just read him some Derrida. Gave him some dinner dandelions. That’s all.” Lies. Lies lies lies, we all knew of course. Could reach each other’s souls at this point like picture books.

“What took you so long then?”

“Well you know how Derrida is. So… dense . We had to keep stopping. He asked a lot of pointed questions about post structuralism and such. He was taking notes.”

“ Notes ?” Coraline narrowed her eyes. Don’t believe you, Bunny .

“May we ask why YOU took so long yesterday afternoon?” Vik shot back.

Coraline reddened. “Because I was reading him The Wind in the Willows . And he got lost in the story. We both did.” She lowered her eyes, blushed suddenly to recall it, her eyes filled with a terrible yearning. “Did he ask about me?” she whispered to the floor, in the most embarrassing tone, Bunny.

“ You ? Not that we can recall, no. Don’t think you came up. He on the other hand.” And she grinned.

Coraline ran up to the attic crying, while Vik looked at us like, what did I fucking say? Grinning like a Cheshire cat who’s just been fucked. Kyra glanced at me again from across the living room like, Isn’t murder starting to make so much more sense?

But her mind musings were suddenly interrupted by Coraline’s piercing scream.

“BUNNY. Come fucking up here!”

And when I heard those words, I knew. Was not at all surprised when we ran up to find Coraline standing alone in the middle of the attic. Still screaming though no sound was coming out of her open mouth, Bunny. Her fists opening and closing like a child’s. And Aerius?

“Gone,” she whispered.

And indeed, he was gone. How different Kyra’s attic looked to my eye in this moment. Just a shitty old attic, I saw. Bereft of all but our word confetti. Our heart’s blood turned into so much ripped paper. Beheaded dandelions scattered here and there, the air smelling keenly of rabbit piss. Rancid freesia and roses and so many clumps of dying grasses. Torn books and a turned over speaker, from which our playlist still wailed on, skipping like a heart. The triangle window, shattered now, let in only a bit of the darkening blue. The broken glass mocked us, casting a fractured evening light on our faces. A jagged man-shaped hole there now.

“Didn’t you…” Coraline began, hyperventilating. “Remember to…tie him back up , Bunny?”

“Of course, I fucking remembered,” Vik mumbled. Another lie we read as plainly as the fuck you in her eyes.

“Then how did he jump out the window?” Kyra asked.

“I don’t—”

“You KILLED him,” Coraline cried.

“ I killed him? How did I—”

“He jumped and died because of you! You DROVE him away with your HORNINESS. Your fucking desire!”

“I just wanted to give him a minute to fucking breathe is all. He’s a wild…spirit. We can’t tie him up all the time, can we?”

But she was looking away from us now, flustered. Hiding something clearly. Lies, I wanted to scream. Instead, I reached out my arm. “Viktoria,” I said. So terribly kindly. “Why don’t you tell us what really happened, hmm? Remember this is a Collective. Remember you’re among friends.” My grip on her shoulder was tight. My soul shrieked Mutiny yet I kept my gaze endlessly Maternal, my smile rife with Understanding.

She looked at me and covered her face with her hands. “He said something to me,” she whispered.

My heart went cold. “What did he say?” I asked, and my own voice cracked. Recalling his outburst with me on that very first day.

“He called me a…name,” she said.

“What name?” Kyra and Coraline asked, curious now.

Vik shook her head at the floor. As if still refusing it. As if she could still see his cherry lips gleefully forming the shape of her shame. “ VANILLA ,” she spat at last.

We looked at each other. Vanilla?

“He’s such a monster,” Vik cried. Dissolved into pitiful tears. I looked back at Kyra and Coraline, expecting they would be similarly bemused. But their eyes were downcast now. Were they recalling a similar instance with him?

“I did tie him back up, I did,” she blubbered. “But I was flustered after that, okay? I must not have tied it tightly enough or something.” She looked at me, red eyed, puffy faced. I’d never seen her so vulnerable. Desperate for some kind of absolution, some words of motherly kindness. But what was I to say, Samantha? I tightened my grip on her neck, smiled coldly.

“I’ll never fucking forgive you,” Coraline blurted serendipitously, a crude paraphrasing of what was just then in my own soul. “I’ll hate you. Always and forever.”

“He didn’t die, Bunny, look,” Kyra said, pointing to the ground outside. We all turned and looked through the man-shaped hole. Indeed, there was no dead body down there on the grass below. Only Kyra’s weedy front lawn. My heart immediately brightened, even as another kind of panic immediately took hold. Where is he?

“He must have landed on his feet and hopped away or something,” Kyra mused sadly. Clearly she’d been hoping for his death.

“He’s not a cat , Kyra,” Coraline snapped. “But it does look like he didn’t die.”

She looked at me, her hopeful smile terrible to behold. “He’s alive,” she said, her voice a butterfly net flailing around in the dark.

“Where is he?” I heard myself whisper. “Where where where?”

While they all speculated on where he might have gone— how many gardens were there in this college town? How many fields? What systematic plan might we devise in order to cover this ground as efficiently as possible ?—I closed my eyes. Attempted, desperately, to locate him telepathically. But it was like a light inside me had gone dark, Bunny, the candle of my spirit snuffed. I pictured Aerius wetting his forefinger and thumb with his lovely pink tongue and then putting out my soul’s flame. And now he was out there, beyond our reach. Running around in my torn Free People. His dandelion-speckled lips possibly spewing my many secrets to my many enemies, oh god. But I could not show Panic, neither in my words nor in my mind nor in my heart which my peers could read so plainly in any case.

“Jesus Christ,” Kyra whispered. “Look there. On the wall.”

I opened my eyes.

And then I saw the giant words written in blood, on the very wall where we’d shown him our favorite films, projected our narrative dreams. Words written, I knew, by his finger, in his blood. Which was our finger, our blood.

KILL ALLAN

14

“You don’t really think he’s going to do it, do you?” Vik asked, a half-laugh in her voice. This was later, before a fire Kyra made in the living room, to warm us Bunny, though I knew we would be forever cold now. All of us staring at the tall leaping flames. Seeing only his shape there.

“Of course not really , Bunny. We didn’t mean it fucking literally, did we?” Coraline said.

“We said we wanted to,” Kyra said simply. “And now it’s in him. The wanting to.”

“But he has to know we didn’t mean it for real , right?” Vik insisted, still pale. Vanilla vanilla humming in her mind. She’d never actually fucked him, she confessed.

I looked at the wildly crackling fire. Would I only ever see his silhouette in every cloud and flame?

“I don’t know that he understands the difference between figurative and literal language though,” Kyra said. “I mean, did we ever um, delineate that?”

“I’m sure somewhere between Derrida and DuMaurier, it got covered, Bunny,” Coraline snapped. Flower dress askew. Eye makeup running down her face, never so pale as it was now. Her once golden bob a brassy frizz fest. I could see the dark roots creeping into the gold plainly. What a picture of aesthetic ruin she made. “I didn’t do the reading for tomorrow,” she sighed sadly. “I should do it. Even though I’m sure it’s just another murder text.”

Yes. They were all murder texts. That is all Allan ever seemed to assign.

She looked at me, they all did, waiting for my words of wisdom, of consolation. But I offered them not. I, unlike them, was eerily calm now. I knew that, despite Vik’s clumsiness, something irreversible had now been set in motion, Bunny. It would lead to an inevitable Outcome, which was perhaps destined all along. Of course I wanted him back. Of course I worried for his safety. He was out there now, my creation. Set loose upon the World. But though I was afraid, it was also exhilarating to me. I wondered what might happen now. And just then, Bunny, I noticed it. The back of the attic door. That hook where Kyra liked to hang the axe. The hook itself. Still e mpty. I looked at my peers. All of them were staring at this empty hook. Especially Vik. “Vik, where’s the axe?” I asked. Even though I knew of course. We all did.

“Oh my fucking god,” Kyra whispered.

And quite in spite of myself, Bunny, I smiled.

Are you still with us, Samantha? On this portentous Samhain night, when our beloved broke free with our axe in his hand? Jumped right out of that window over there, breaking the glass, which Kyra’s since had replaced of course (don’t get any ideas, Samantha). We’re so glad you are. Now it’s at this point in our telling where we’re going to take a bit of a turn, Bunny.

A hop, if you will.

I’m going to invite my peers to join us again…Come on back up, Bunny.

Hurry, hurry.

Because it’s Time.

Because we agreed to share something with you, something we’ve never shown a soul. And even though you’re terribly fucking unworthy, still, we’re going to share it. For the sake of our Journeys, healing and creative both. And because that’s what we artists do, isn’t it? Share our souls with the unworthy World. We give even though no one ever says, Thank you, I’m listening. Wow, I so hear the star dust in that. We’re also going to share because otherwise you might not believe what we’re about to tell you next, true story. And it’s probably best to let him tell it. Yes, him , Bunny, in his very own words. For the sake of authenticity. So you’ll hear directly from the Source. We have it right here, the pages lovingly bound and preserved. We’ll read it to you, how’s that? Since you’re not in the best position to turn pages on your own at the moment, your hands not being exactly free.

We do hope you’re still with us, Bunny, even though it’s late now. And the world so terribly quiet at this hour. It’s quite forgotten all about you, sadly. No idea that you’re alone here in the Dark with us. Which is really the perfect time for a story. This story in particular, of course.

Are you ready, Bunny?

P A R T T W O

A E R I U S

I

Dear Reader,

Hello! Very nice to meet you!

Of course, I know we are not really meeting

You are Wherever you are right now, reading this Page. Maybe you are in a lovely Garden on a bright autumnal Day, surrounded by delicious Flowers the color of Sunshine, the Sun itself warming your Pelt beautifully (I hope )! Or maybe you are in a cold, dark room like I am, on a muddy, flowerless floor full of Worms and Stones (I hope not ).

And I? Who wrote this Page long ago?

I am who knows where now. Hopefully not Here anymore

Probably we will never meet in Person (Though I do hope Someday we will )

Mother says meeting Here on the Page is actually better than meeting in Person, anyway. In Person only ever disappoints, Mother says, and there is the Bitterness of dead Dandy Lion Stems in her Voice. The Page can disappoint too of course, Mother admits, though it disappoints less But I still hope we will meet in Person anyway, Reader. Perhaps even become Friends Mother says I should write as though I am speaking intimately, truthfully, to a dear Friend. I will try though I have no Friends of yet Apart from Pony, that is, who has been with me since the Attic Times and who does not speak anymore. Pony does not speak no matter how many Times I have tried to engage him in Conversations, no matter how many Questions I ask him about himself. His pink Eyes sparkle so beautifully, Reader, but they never do blink. He is a lovely but sadly unmoving, possibly dead Horse Not Dead , Mother always corrects. He is what she calls instead a Silly Toy. How this devastated me, dear Reader, when Mother first shared this News At first I thought she was only lying to be Cruelle, which she sometimes likes to be. But Mother says tis not she who is Cruelle so much, tis the World Which makes a kind of sense, though I do love the World

I confess I still unburden my Self to Pony in the Evenings when I am alone here in the Writing Shed. Though his Eyes never blink, I imagine he is blinking. I imagine he is listening too. Mother says to imagine is to make your Insides rich, to make what might never be be , if only for a Moment, in your Mindscape. And so I imagine Pony shedding many invisible Tears for me and the many Violences that have befallen me and that I have befallen I imagine that he is smiling and laughing at the many Wonders that have befallen me, too Mother caught me doing this once and called it Pathetic.

The next Day she presented me with this Book.

In which I am now writing these very Words

As I write, I will imagine another kind of Friend. Here, now, on my cold and flowerless Floor, with only a sliver of Moon on my Face, with the delicious Hum of freshly growing Grasses so close yet so far from my Ears, I will imagine You

You, dear Reader, will be my most Perfect Friend To whom I can say anything like I could to Pony and you will not laugh at me please (as Mother sometimes laughs at me) and you will be on my Side in what I am increasingly learning is a cold and Cruelle World Though it also has its Beauties

I can see you opening this Book now, Friend. My Book with the bright pink Flowers on the Cover, which I don’t love. These Flowers frankly scare me somewhat I hope you will not tell Mother if you meet her, about the Flowers scaring me, though they do, they do When I close my Eyes, in fact, the Flowers seem to grow even larger in my Mindscape, the Petals threaten to strangle me, to strangle Aerius, and I wake up quite screaming Yet I keep the Book. Apart from Pony, tis my only Possession in the World (Mother confiscated my Weaponry ) so I hold it close. Tis a Way too, my only Way, to communicate with the Outside, to tell You, my only Friend, of my Happenings. And of course, as Mother says, to Tap the Wound. This is why she bought me the Flower Book in the first Place, she said. Mother thinks I have many Wounds. She thinks I have been through what she calls Violences. She thinks I have experienced many Wonders too, beyond the mere Comprehension of the Human Mindscape. Now I must Tap the Wound to Language those Violences and Wonders.

I do not know what it is to Tap the Wound exactly

I asked Mother one Night, when we were sitting inside her Ring of small Fires (Candles, Mother calls them), cross-legged as she likes to do. She had her Eyes closed as she likes to do too. Seeing with her Mindscape what she calls The Source . The Well Spring.

“Mother,” I whispered, “what is it to Tap the Wound?”

Mother opened one Eye. Not at all loving to be interrupted. But loving me more, I could sense. She looked at me sitting across from her over the many Flames. I confess I prefer her Eyes closed to whenever she looks at me, always with a kind of Hunger-Wonder. Like I am the finest Flower she has ever seen that she would also love to eat. So beautiful she dare not eat, yet one Day she may not be able to resist. One Day the Hunger might triumph over the Wonder. And Aerius might be no more

But on this Night, she only smiled at me. “Tapping the Wound is an unconscious Process. To explain would be to kill the Flow of the Well Spring.”

I nodded as if I understood. Sometimes with Mother it is best to pretend to understand rather than to ask more Questions. She often becomes overwhelmed at how much I do not seem to know She often leaves and slams the door and just before she does, looks at me like I am so stupid, I am such Trash . She will burn me alive, she will tear me into a thousand Pieces and throw me in the Garbage, her Eyes say. If I continue to speak in what she calls this nonsensical or banal Manner . If I continue to ramble on about Ponies and Dandy Lions when she wishes me to speak on other Matters.

So here I am

Tapping the Wound (or trying to)

For you, dear Reader. My Friend

Now that we have “met,” where should Aerius begin? There is so much to tell, that the Truth is I do not know! I would prefer not to begin in the Attic Times, dear Reader. I would much prefer not. These Times are too painful to revisit Instead I think I will begin with my first Night of Freedom Tis a Time that I like to go most in my Mindscape, despite some of its (inevitable) Violences Yes, I will begin there: with Aerius in the Attic, so much Abused Tied up, locked away with nothing but a Triangle of Sky to look at for so very long Eating Nothing but dead Grasses and brightly colored Poisons in a multitude of Shapes Something called a “Playlist” forever roaring around my Person Moving Pictures on the wall of which I could make no sense and some very tasteless Literatures by my bound Feets, which provided little in the way of Sustenance My Eyes forever on the Triangle, dreaming, dreaming of Escape. And then came that fateful Night when one of my Keepers had been a bit loose with the Rope. She’d become flustered by a Word I had said. I knew not which for I often spoke without knowing what I was saying, Reader. But this Word had a dismantling Effect on her Person, causing her to fumble suddenly with the many Ropes that bound me, so that she inadvertently left a kind of Loophole from which, with the help of my Razor, I was able to free my Body.

In her haste to leave me, she’d also left the Axe on the floor, which I happily picked up. Struck the Triangle thrice. And then, bypassing its many Shards, jumped into the Night.

I should say that when I jumped, I knew that Death might well be my Fate. Alas, twas a Risk I was willing to take, such had been the Pain of my Attic Times So when I landed in the tall Grasses below, Alive and unscathed (and already on my Feets no less), you can imagine my very pleasant Surprise I stood in the Grasses, staring at the little house that had long been my Prison. Through the lighted windows I saw my Keepers: Goldy Cut, Murder Fairy, and Insatiable (these were my private Names for them). And of course the one I called the Mind Witch, who I saw less often than my other three Keepers, but who I sensed was Queen of them all. They all four seemed much shorter than I recalled. They were arguing about me in their high-pitched Voices, which they often liked to do, about who would date me and what Literatures to feed me next and one of them chanting softly about an Axe with which to kill me and so on And I ran, Reader. Right past the open living room windows, in perfect view of them, each one smelling of Flowers not in Nature, each wearing Petal-colored Dresses whose bright Shades haunt me still. I took Axe along with me, Reader. Since I knew they were planning to kill me with it, I thought it best

And to Kill Allan with also

More on this Matter very soon

I had Pony with me too of course. He’d been a gift from Goldy Cut. This is for you , she’d said, offering up the pink Horse like an Organ of her Body. At first I did not want to accept, let alone talk to him, belonging as he did to Goldy Cut Perhaps he was her Spy. But as it turned out he had no such Loyalties, for he too had suffered many Violences at her Hands And so we fast became great Friends Now, I tucked him neatly first in my inside Pocket then in my outside Pocket so he could better see the Happenings of our Escape. He, like me, was so very excited to leave at last! More excited than even I, or so I imagined, by his many eye Sparkles. (I had begun imagining long before Mother gave a name to it, it seems.) I had my Razor with me too. Goldy Cut had used it to carve many Words into my Pelt, always such soft little Strokes, mostly her phone number and Name surrounded by blobby Circles which she said were Hearts. My Heart , she said, pointing to one of these misshapen Circles. Her Hand trembling so mightily when she made her many Imprints on my Body that the Words and numbers still appear to be trembling too.

But I Digress.

Pony, Razor and Axe, these were my only Friends in the World, each one useful in their way. Pony and Razor in my Pockets and Axe fitting very comfortably inside my velvet Blazer the deep blue color of Twilight Time. There was even a hook within the lining for me to hang her on. Axe fit so perfectly there that it was almost Too Good to Be True, almost as if I were in a Story —a Fiction or one of those Moving Pictures—where the Narrative Stars always seem to align. Almost as if a strange kind of Fortune were following me. A Serendipity, to use the Mind Witch’s most favorite Word.

Oh, how the Night Air felt, Reader The cool Sweetness! The hum of Grasses! The Moon on my Face casting her silvery Light! Aerius felt alive! Alive, alive, alive , Pony and I might have screamed (or so I imagined Pony screamed for he had no visible mouth). I pulsed with a new kind of Electricity. An Energy all along my Pelt. My Lips curled into quite a Smile, I felt it on my Face Though I was terribly hungry and thirsty, I did not touch the delicious smelling Grass at my Feets for I was still too close to my former Prison. Instead I stuffed some in my Pockets along with some cold Flowers. Then I skipped along for some Time and did not look back, not once at the smashed Triangle window. Which still gives me Nightmares to think about

How long did I run, jumping up and down and up and down, shouting Free, Free, Free? I cannot tell for such was my Exhilaration. The Moon alone witnessed my Ecstasy. Once I was far enough away, I stuffed my Mouth with as many Dandy Lions as could be held in that smiling Vessel I found there to be a crisp new Chill to their Taste. Clearly, it had grown colder since the Attic Time. There was a frosty Bite to each stem and Petal, to the Night Air itself.

I was just wondering about this, contemplating how much Time had truly passed, when I saw three little Monsters up ahead on the road, skipping toward me in the Dark. Each one was carrying a small orange bucket. The buckets were shaped like smiling P umpkins. I did not like the look of these Monsters or their leering Pumpkin buckets, Reader They stopped before me. Two appeared to be little Ghosts and the other a Devil with Horns and a large red plastic Pitchfork. They were very short Monsters. And afeared of me, I could tell by their Eyes, which widened at the Sight of my Person. Their Fear, I confess, delighted me a little

They looked at me, my Mouth full of cold (but still delicious) Dandy Lion. My velvet Blazer, my white Nightgown fluttering in the dark Breeze.

“What are you supposed to be?” they asked.

Pony did not like this Question, I felt him frowning in my P ocket. Supposed to be?

“Free,” I said. The Word, Reader, gave me such a Shiver of Pleasure to say.

These Monsters looked at each other, then held up their buckets.

“Trick or Treat,” they said to me. Quite hopefully, but afeared still. I stared at the leering Pumpkin Faces, those sly black Smiles. The buckets, I saw, were filled to the near top with Candy. I knew twas Candy, Reader, because I’d been fed similar Confections by my Keepers in various Forms. I had craved Clover and tender Grasses fresh from the Earth, and what had they mostly given me? A toxic, bright-colored Dust called Pixie Stix to which I’d sorely become addicted Some vile, sweet plastic Rope which they said were Red Vines. A monstrously hard candy called (paradoxically) a Jolly Rancher , that I learned (the hard way ) you could not bite into directly but instead had to suck for a very long time. These three Monsters, it seemed, wanted me to add to their toxic Bounty. How lucky for them that I had fresh Grasses in my Pocket to offer instead I gave them some of these Pocket Grasses though I could feel Pony whispering, Don’t don’t! I gave them a Dandy Lion too. “They are cold due to the Chill,” I warned, “but still delicious.”

The Monsters looked at one another, presumably not knowing what to make of my Offerings. “Don’t you have anything else?” This from one of the two Ghosts.

I could not part with Pony, obviously, though I noticed the Devil Child eyeing him enviously. But perhaps I could part with Razor, since I also had Axe in my Blazer. So I held it out with a Smile, Reader, as if to say, “For you.” Handed it forth like a Flower. And these little Monsters screamed. The two sneakered Ghosts ran promptly away into the Dark.

But the Devil, who’d been eyeing Pony, stayed. Stared at me, not seeming able to stop himself. Almost as if he were drinking me, Reader. My Dress, my Pearls, my Blazer blue as the Night itself, the Razor I twirled in my Hand. Mostly he stared at my Face as if he were lost there. I was used to this Manner of Staring, it had been a staple of my Attic Times. Though I despised my Keepers, I confess their obvious Enchantment always did delight me. It reminded me that even though I was bound and in their Power, I had Powers of my own. And so the Boy’s Fixation pleased me. I put away the Razor, and as I did so, felt compelled to reach into my Pocket again though I knew it to be empty. And twas funny, but something was in there this Time. Like Magic, it had appeared (and perhaps this Story Magic of which I spoke earlier was responsible). A Jolly Rancher, twas. Watermelon. On the wrapper, a wedge of the Fruit smiling broadly at us both.

I handed it to the little Devil, put the Candy right in his open Hoof, which was trembling slightly. And how funny that I quite enjoyed the Tremble, Reader, that I was having such an Effect! He appeared completely entranced. My Keepers often used this Word, entranced , to describe my Effect upon them. You cast such a Spell , Murder Fairy often said, that I probably have to murder you. Because I don’t want to share you. Because if I can’t have you no one can.

The Devil looked down at the Jolly Rancher as if twere something more than mere Candy. “Al?” a Woman’s Voice called softly somewhere.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“Aerius,” I whispered back.

“Al!” the Woman’s Voice called again, seeming to get closer.

The Boy, who perhaps was named Al, ignored her. “Aerius,” he repeated as though learning the name of a lovely Song. So lost in my Face and I marveling at how lost he was there. Wanting him to be more lost still. I looked at his own Face, which was painted all over with shining red flecks.

“I enjoy this Glitter,” I said to the Boy, touching his Cheek. “It is so sparkly. May I have some?”

“Al? Where are you?”

The Boy nodded, as if in a Trance. He swiped at his Face and brushed the residual Glitter gently onto my Cheeks like I had seen my Keepers do with what they call Rouge. He smiled. And I smiled at his Smiling. Twas a moment of Great Electric Beauty, Reader. Of Transcendent Connection between us. Axe slipped from my Blazer onto the cold sparkly pavement with a soft Clatter.

“ALAN!” the Voice roared now. “Alan Michael Foxworthy, you come here right now! Where are you?”

And something happened to my Body then, Reader, at the sound of this Name. My Hands on the Boy’s Shoulders. Suddenly gripping them tight. “ Allan ?” I repeated.

The Boy startled and I startled too, Reader. So viscerally connected we were in this Moment. Fear brightening his Eye anew. “Allan,” I said, gripping his Shoulders tighter still.

And then the Words came to me like a Song, the Song of my Blood. “Kill Allan,” I whispered, reaching down for my Axe, which had perhaps dropped to the Ground for this very Reason

Kill Allan, Kill Allan, Kill Allan.

I had just raised my Axe over his Head, as he stood there watching it like twas a lovely Falling Star, when I heard another V oice pierce the Night. Familiar. Terrible. “Aerius!” Twas the high Voice of one of my Keepers. Goldy Cut, possibly Murder Fairy.

“Aerius, where are you?”

How it made my Blood cold, Reader, to hear this Voice calling me How it froze me there in Fear before Allan. I looked around me, wildly, Axe in Hand. But I could see no Sign of them. No Petal-colored Dress, no shining Hairs. Had I imagined the Voice or were they truly out there, hunting for me? I turned back to Allan to ask him for his Thoughts on this before I killed him, but I found he’d gone Run off and disappeared into the Dark Leaving only his leering Pumpkin bucket behind, its many bright-colored Poisons spilling onto the sidewalk. I stared at these Poisons, recalling Goldy Cut handing them to me by the Fistful, a wavering Smile on her Face. Sweets to make you sweet, she’d whispered.

Twas then I grew Sad, Reader For unless I was imagining things (), I was already being pursued And I had failed to kill Allan, who had strangely grown so much shorter than when I’d first seen him from the Garden, walking toward his Subaru—which was quite curious. Though why I wished to kill him, I did not know, Reader. Why, at the sound of his Name, did such sharp Longing fill my Blood? And why did I feel as if to kill him would bring a kind of strange Relief?

This was all quite curious too.

“But then the ways of Nature are curious, aren’t they?” I asked Pony.

Yes , Pony whispered from my Pocket.

“Aerius!” cried the Voice again. Voices. Growing louder and closer now.

And so I, like Allan, disappeared into the Dark.

I ran until I could no longer hear their Voices dogging me, until I felt I’d left their Shadows in the Dust. I found my Self on a dark winding street, lit by many a strange orange Light. Pumpkins leering at me from every doorstep, every window. Monsters large and small walked past me in the Dark, brushing past my velvet Shoulders. Some in large Clusters, some alone. A shrieking Laughter came from I knew not where. Perhaps the Night was laughing at me, Reader Everywhere I looked, Men made of Bones sat on porch steps staring idly into my Soul

All of these Sights and Sounds uneased Pony terribly. They uneased me too, I confess.

“Pony,” I whispered into my Pocket, “is this really the World?”

Pony did not answer this time, he sometimes fell silent for long Spells. Without Allan to Kill, with my Keepers after me, the Night lost much of its Joy, Reader Grew cold and strange I suddenly started to feel quite alone in this bizarre new World where Allans could shrink without Warning and Dandy Lions were bitten through with Frost and every Shadow or Sound could be a Keeper with an Axe wanting to revise me I longed for that little Monster’s Face on mine again, looking at me with such Wonder and Fear, even if he was Allan and I must Kill Allan

I longed perhaps, for the first time, Reader, for a Friend

Twas then I heard Sounds of a faint but buoyant Music playing nearby. Voices shouting in Delight. Up ahead, I saw a big house on a Hill, quite lit up with the prettiest Lights. I was dazzled by these Lights and by the Sounds of Rejoicing seemingly coming from within I felt a sense of Giddiness return to me. A sense of the Night’s great Possibilities Perhaps all that Light would heat up the cold Earth and I would find warmer Dandy Lions and more tender Grasses there. Perhaps there too I would find a Friend

As I approached the house, the Lights and rejoicing Sounds grew so much louder, which was entrancing and drew me ever nearer Monsters were entering the front door in large numbers. It seemed a very popular Destination, this house. There were strange Characters etched over the door—Letters but not English Letters. Greek, I recognized, from the many ancient Texts that Insatiable liked to read to me, alongside her Poststructuralist Theories Forgive me , she often whispered hotly during these Readings, her dirty fingernails digging into my Shoulder, her unbrushed hair in my Face. But I’m Insatiable . To see those Characters made me (and Pony), not a little nervous, Reader. Reminded me that my Keepers were surely still out there hunting for me so that they could continue with their terrible Revision This Revision seemed to involve a lot of Hair Braidings, a lot of Sighing in my Face with Tears shining in their Eyes, a lot of touching my Hands as though not believing them to be Real. A lot of asking me to tell them something, please, and me never knowing what to tell, for I sensed each Keeper wanted something quite Specific, some quite particular String of Words, and these particular Words I could not guess A lot of begging me to run away with them, please, and not tell the Others, please, a lot of saying the word Mine and grasping my Wrist quite tightly, sometimes asking me, shyly, if I’d like to make out or receive something called Oral. Or if I might like to give them Oral. Please. Though they thankfully never went so far as to impose their actual Bodies on me, Reader, they did subject me, quite extensively, to their Longings

Much as I did not want to be alone, much as I wanted to go into the house with its warming Lights and happy Sounds, I also did not want to be discovered by Insatiable Or Goldy Cut or Murder Fairy even though I had her Axe now. Certainly I did not want to be found by the Mind Witch. This house was filled with Monsters after all, and perhaps one or all of my Keepers were among them

What was I to do?

I was pondering this Question when I felt something at my Feets. There, lying on the frostbitten Grass: a Rabbit’s Face. Plastic. Pink. Smiling at me. How familiar (and yet not familiar) this Face seemed to me—its pudgy pink Cheeks full of stiff white Whiskers and its Eyes two black Holes framed with pretty Eyelashes. Long pink Ears with furry white Tufts grew out of its Head. Something about these Ears in particular filled me with a kind of odd Longing, Reader. Twas like looking into a slightly off Mirror, I cannot tell why. I picked up the Face—a Mask I would learn twas called—and placed it over my own. I felt it belonged there somehow, belonged on me. There was an elastic that went around the back of my Head that held it in Place. Suddenly I saw the World through these very small Holes and though it was harder to breathe, it was also somewhat easier to absorb my Surroundings this way. It was easier to Be , do you understand this F eeling, Reader? Suddenly I felt Free again. A different kind of Free. Like I could hide and yet show my Self at the very same Time

I ran inside the house quite eagerly then. Axe in Hand and this Rabbit’s Face on mine.

Eager, very eager, to make new Friends

II

“Hello, Friends!” I shouted, when I came in the door, waving Axe. Everyone waved and screamed delightedly, Reader.

“Whoa, bro!”

“What the fuck?”

A Party, twas At something called a Frat or so a passing Z ombie told me. There was much wild Laughter here and many screaming Monsters in Polo Shirts wearing scary Creature Masks of various sorts, drinking quite exuberantly from large red plastic cups or else from long hoses attached to giant barrels. A jolly Music played by someone called The Smiths, played so loudly that I could barely hear my own Mind, Reader. In my Pocket, I felt Pony’s Head was going to explode from the many Sights and Sounds! A very merry bunch of Frat Monsters they seemed to be. All of them congregating in a large living room full of beany bags and fainting couches. There were dead Animal Heads on the wall (which made me shudder a little to behold) and the room smelled heavily of Goldy Cut, whenever she was just a wee bit tipsy on the Juniper Sap. Nervously, I looked around for her, but found no Sign Not of her nor of any of them Twas then I recalled her using the Word Frat as though she were spitting it. As though the Word were physically distasteful to her and she needed to eject it from her Body as quickly as possible. This delighted me to recall, Reader. I would be safe here, surely, among these drunk Monsters, all gathering around me now, smiling at me through their Creature Masks. Waving their plastic cups as they pointed their Fingers at me and screamed “What the Fuck?” Or “Whoa, who the Fuck are you supposed to be, Bro?”

“Free,” I said.

“Rad,” a Monster said. “That’s some Donnie Darko shit, Bro.”

“Into American Psycho much?”

“Echo and the Bunnymen Fan?” another cried.

“Yes,” I said. Even though I did not know who Donnie Darko was, Reader. Or who American Psycho was. Or Echo and the Bunnymen. Still, tis always good to say Yes rather than No It makes Faces happier, I find.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I cried. For their Eyes were all on me now, Reader, and this felt very good Made me bounce a little to the Song playing, which was very buoyant and not at all like the melancholy Harps and high-pitched Wailings of the Playlist, to which I had long been subjected

“Cool Axe, Bro.”

“Yes!” I agreed, “tis quite chilled from the Night Air!” And I swung it round most merrily. They all laughed, some a little nervously. What the fuck? Which did delight me.

“Hot,” many Girl Monsters whispered, giggling amongst themselves at my Person. These Girl Monsters—shiny-haired and smelling of false Flowers—reminded me a little too much of my Keepers So I steered clear of them, Reader, though I did enjoy their obvious Admiration The Song playing now was one which Pony quite liked and which I liked too, because it sounded really very much like Jumping. And in fact these Frat Monsters were now all jumping, Reader! All around me! So I jumped with them! Oh, twas Fun, twas Fun! Pony was crying with such unbridled Delight from my Pocket. He had let go at last of his Reservations, allowing himself to be carried away by the Rejoicings As we jumped, someone gave me a Drink called Goldschlager. Twas a gold-flecked Magic Liquid that was sweet-spicy as Cinnamons Not at all like the putrid kombucha or the bitter, colorless seltzer given to me by my Keepers that fizzed most hideously I drank many thimblefuls of this Goldy Liquid to the great Applause of the jumping Monsters all around me and how I loved these Applause! They made me jump higher and drink more thimblefuls, twas so lovely and warming to imbibe! And when I used this word imbibe , how these Frat Monsters all roared at me with Delight.

“ Imbibe !” They repeated, laughing. “This rabbit guy’s a fucking Trip, Bro.”

And I said, “YES!” For I was a Trip, I was! I loved this Word to describe myself

I was jumping really wildly now, waving my Axe around, when beside me I noticed another jumping Monster with a Black Bird on his Shoulder and a black Patch over one Eye. He was laughing and repeating that I was such a Trip, I was such a Trip. And I laughed and said he was a Trip also and he laughed more so I laughed more and I don’t know why, but I felt somehow we might become Friends, I felt this Potential For he was smiling and jumping close to me now, jumping quite as high as I was, looking at my Axe with such Wonder. And he whispered “Is the Axe…uh Real, Bro?”

“Real?” I said.

Twas such a funny Word to me, Reader. I still didn’t quite grasp its Meaning though my Keepers had often taken such Pains to explain. Especially the Mind Witch. Real , she might begin, stroking my Arm with her very long-fingered Hands, is when something is here in the World and not just in your Mind anymore. When it is here with you in the Attic. Right in front of your Face and you still can’t fucking believe it. She looked at me, Tears in her Eyes, her Talons sinking deeply into my forearm Flesh.

“What is Real?” I said now to the Man with the Eye Patch.

And he laughed and said, “Oh Bro, you just made my Head like explode, k?”

“I did? Oh that is wonderful,” I cried. We were both of us jumping very wildly, in Time with each other quite like a Dance. Sometimes my Keepers would make me dance with them, especially Goldy Cut How she loved to do what she called Slow Dance She’d play what she called a Power Ballad (those soft Swells still assail my Soul to recall, Reader ), place my Hands on her terribly soft Shoulders, sometimes on her Back or Waist, and make us rock together in time to the yearning Strains, her golden Head pressed fiercely into my Chest, weeping and laughing at the same.

I did not care for that kind of Dancing, Reader Not at all

But this kind of jumping Dancing I loved

“What is Real, what is Real, what is Real!” I screamed, jumping and jumping and turning round and round as I jumped. The Goldy Liquid made the Words tumble quite silkily off my Tongue.

And he laughed and said, “Whoa, Bro, my Philosophy seminar’s not till tomorrow at 9:15, k? Plus I didn’t even do the Reading!”

“Me too!” I screamed, thinking of the many Readings I had left behind in the Attic

“Wait you’re in my class, Bro?”

“No, but I would LOVE to be! So long as we may keep jumping! So long as we may jump together forever!”

“Fuck yes!”

“FUCK YES!” I cried.

“Is this for Real, Bro?” he whispered, still jumping as I was jumping, not looking at the Axe this time, but at my Face. Or rather the Mask I’d placed over my Face, which also strangely felt like my Face. “Like as in you and I dancing together right now and this Music and these Lights? You know, Reality .” And he smiled at me. His one Eye was most lovely, Reader.

“Oh it’s definitely Reality,” I said. And he laughed and said once more that I was a Trip, a real Trip and I agreed I was. And I said, “Is your Black Bird Reality?” And he said, “Fuck yes, it’s Reality.” And now we were jumping really very close together, Reader, it was quite a lovely M oment of Transcendent Connection, of Great Electric Beauty. And he whispered, “You’re not Queer, are you?” And I said, “Queer?” And his Eyes said , Say no but mean yes . So I said, “No,” but I smiled yes and he said, “Thank god.” And he took another large thimbleful of the Goldy Liquid and handed me one too and both of us imbibed and the Music slowed then. Suddenly I noticed that we were no longer in the living room but another Place, that in our wild Jumpings, we’d somehow leapt quite far away from the other Frat Monsters, Reader. That we were now upstairs, alone, in a small room with very red walls. Many dead Animal Heads hung on these walls as well as Guns. I stared at the shining Animal Eyes, the gleaming Barrels, and felt a Fear run through my Pelt quite like a Lightning Flash. I looked back at my Monster Friend with the Eye Patch. He was smiling at me strangely now, his handsome Face very red from all the Goldy Liquid he had imbibed. Quite lovely he was to behold. The Music playing was quite like the Power Ballads Goldy Cut enjoyed and we were no longer jumping but swaying together, rocking almost, quite close, almost like we were slow dancing . Though I felt quite uneasy in this room, I did not mind dancing in this way with this Monster. I felt strangely like he wanted to kiss me and in Truth I felt a similar Longing. He was a most handsome Monster, Reader, the exquisite Symmetry of his Face accentuated beautifully by the Eye Patch. Instead he took a very long Sip of his Drink. “It’s actually supposedly to be a Raven,” he said. Shaking his broad Shoulder upon which the giant Bird sat.

“A Raven?” I looked at this large Bird. Its sharp Beak and shining Eyes suddenly seemed quite Cruelle. Mocking. Capable of anything. I felt my Heart curl into a small Fist.

The Monster smiled then. “You’re not scared are you? Are Bunnies scared of Ravens?” he whispered, fingering the Whiskers on my other Face.

I shook my Head. “No,” I lied. And he brought the Bird up to my Nose, and screamed “BOO” then laughed a little at my Cowering. I did not care for that, Reader

“Well, they are Predators, I guess,” he said, pulling me back to him gently. “For poor sweet Bunnies.” He looked at me tenderly with his one Eye. I felt a strange Excitement then, even as the Animal Heads, the red walls, the gleaming Guns, filled me with an increasing Unease. And then his lovely Eye suddenly grew hard and sharp. He laughed again. Whether at himself or me, I cannot tell.

“Relax Bro,” he whispered, letting me go. “It’s not really Real , k? It never was.”

“It wasn’t?” I whispered.

“Nah. It’s from some fucking Poem apparently.” He shrugged and drank more of the Goldy Liquid. Sucked thoughtfully on a Pen of Vapors, which he’d pulled from his Pocket. The Vapors smelled of Bubblegums. “Called Nevermore or something?”

“ The Raven , you idiot,” said a Voice. I turned and noticed another Monster, half-passed out on a torn couch behind us, opening one Eye. “By Poe?”

“Poe, that’s it,” my Monster said, nodding.

“He wrote ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ Bro. Classic shit, ” this Couch Monster pontificated. Quite out of it himself from the Goldy Liquid. He was gripping a red plastic cup whose amber Contents were spilling onto the floorboards.

“What the fuck is ‘Tell Tale Heart’?” my Monster said.

“You know, where the Dude hacks this other Dude up just because he doesn’t like his Eye for whatever Reason. And then he hides his Body Parts in the Floor? Sick Fuck , Bro.”

“ Smart Fuck!” my Monster laughed, winking at me.

“Good one, Bro,” said the Couch Monster.

“Good one,” I agreed, though I did not know. “Yes. A very, very good one,” I said. “And who, may I ask, is this Writer again?” For his Name, Poe, Reader, rang a strange Bell from the Attic Times.

“You know the fucking dude, Dude. Edgar Something?”

“Allan!” the Couch Monster cried. “And just fyi, Poe didn’t have an Eye Patch, Bro.”

“Bro, this is an injury from Lacrosse , k?” my Monster shot back, defensively. “Which I don’t even want to play. My stepdad makes me.”

“Allan?” I repeated. And my Soul, Reader, suddenly grew quite Cold.

“Allan yeah!” my Monster said, most happily. Blowing his Vapors at me and grinning. Offering me his Pen. “Edgar Allan Fucking Poe, Bro.”

A kind of Electricity passed through my Body, Reader. A Darkness gripped my Heart. For here he was again: Allan. Now grown tall (he was quite the Shape Shifter, I was learning!). Swaying before me with a Patch on his Eye and a Cruelle Raven on his Shoulder. Laughing drunkenly about how he did not know the fucking Tell Tale Heart, k? Sorry-not-sorry. Haha. His one lovely Eye on me, going soft then hard than soft. Well, he should probably go back to his room now, he said, to do his Philosophy Readings. The Prof liked to give a Pop Quiz and such. And the Axe in my Hand suddenly became Alive with Purpose. Hot and loud with Whispers. Hello, hello! Kill Allan! Kill Allan! The Impulse consumed me. I must kill him or I should never be relieved of its Dark Grip. And so down Axe came onto Allan Onto Allan’s Neck specifically, Reader What a sharp cracking Sound she made when she struck Tendon then Bone! So that Allan’s Head was severed quite cleanly from his Body in one Strike Blood! So much Blood everywhere in the most wondrous of Splatters. Blood all over my own Hands still gripping Axe, herself bloody and trembling as I was trembling. Trembling because we had done it, we had killed Allan There was his headless Body lying at my Feets, his Blood pooling darkly on the floorboards, quite red as the walls. I should feel Relief now. So why then Reader did I feel none at all? Perplexed, I watched Allan’s Head sort of slowly rolling away like it might strangely be Alive still. And the Couch Monster, himself covered in Blood Splatter as well as some quivering pink Gristle, still sitting on the torn couch with the plastic cup in his Hand, watched the Head, a mildly amused look on his Face.

“Oh very fucking funny, Tyler,” he said to the Head. “Ha ha ha . You’re not getting me this T ime, k? I’m not falling for it.” He shook his own Head, still affixed to his Body. “Not this year.” He kicked lightly at Allan’s Head. “Tyler!” he called. “Dude, get up .”

“Tyler?” I looked at the Head. “Your name is Tyler?” I whispered to it.

The Head seemed to nod a little. Yes. Tyler.

Oh god , I thought.

Oops

Oops Oops Ooops!

Twas a Word I knew well, for my Keepers used it often, especially Goldy Cut. Oops , she often said, smiling wildly, whenever she pressed her Lips against my various Extremities Oops oops!

What is Oops? I once asked her, afeared.

It is a sound you make when there has been a terrible, terrible Accident , she whispered, her Face very close to my Face. Like this! And then she kissed me quite heatedly on the Nose. “Oops,” I whispered now.

And then, Reader, there was Screaming. So much of it suddenly all around me. I joined in with it like Singing. The Couch Monster was screaming and I was screaming and Pony was screaming in my Pocket and there was more Screaming still, from all of us, when I attempted to put the Wrong Allan’s Head back on his Body so as to bring him back to Life hopefully. Alas, to no Avail There was even more Screaming as the Head dropped from my Hands and rolled away again, so strangely and happily it rolled toward the door, the Face itself smiling though bloody. Almost as if it had a Mind of its own. Which I guess it technically did, Reader. And the Couch Monster kept screaming and then laughing, perhaps not knowing which to do, what to believe. “Very fucking funny, Dude,” he kept shouting from his torn Perch even though he looked wildly afeared. Meanwhile the severed Head rolled right out of the room and out into the hall, Reader. We watched it tumble down the stairs leading into the living room where the Frat Monsters were still in the midst of their great Party. Imminently they would all discover my Oops I turned to the Couch Monster who was staring from the Body to the Axe in my bloody Hand. “I should probably take my leave now,” I told him quietly.

“Oh my god, you really fucking killed him, didn’t you? For Real.”

“What is Real?” I whispered, bracing myself for living room Screams. Surely the Wrong Allan’s Head was making its way down the stairs now and the Frat Monsters would notice. But I only heard the S ound of Laughter.

“Oh my god!”

“Awwww!”

“How did he get in here?”

“Cute!”

Cute? I thought of the severed Head. I did not know if twas Cute but perhaps twas? I was about to ask the Couch Monster for his Thoughts on this, but he was screaming terrifically now. “You killed him! You really fucking killed him! Oh my god you’re a sick FUCK!!!!” And he reached out for one of the many Guns on the red wall.

The Animal Eyes there flashed. Run , I felt their Heads tell me.

So I did run, Reader. Right out the window, which thankfully I did not have to break with Axe. Twas already open, almost as if waiting for me to jump out of it, back into the dark Night.

III

Having killed the Wrong Allan, I left the Frat Party quite Dejected, Reader

Oops , I thought. Oops, Oops Oops !

`Twas my melancholy Refrain

Dejectedly, I sucked on a Pixy Stick I found in my dress Pocket for I felt I deserved no Flowers It tasted like so much bland pink Dust. The Darkness from which I’d sought Relief still gripped my Heart. My Head was swimming from the Goldy Liquid as I zigzagged my way through the Night, the bloody Axe in my Hand. The jumping Music still roared in my Ears along with the Couch Monster’s many Screams, yet the Moon smiled as if she did not know of my troubled Heart and the Grass cooled my Feets refreshingly. So refreshing was the Feel of the Grass that it nearly brought Tears to my Eyes, Reader. A strange Flash came to me then. A Vision. Of my Self in another Body, quite small and furry, with a twitching Nose full of Whiskers. I was crouched in Grasses quite like these, hiding under Shrubs to protect from giant Birds in the Sky like the one on the Wrong Allan’s Shoulder, partaking of some delicate Cowslips while the Hum of the Wind made a jumping Song in my Ears. Odd. Something in the Feel of the Earth just then, its fresh green Scent had brought on this Flash. Brought me back to what felt like another Life, some other Self I had once been, some other Shape I may have once taken in a different World. A Place from which I was now forever Estranged. Severed as the Head of the Wrong Allan. I’d had such Flashes before, Reader, of what I called this Lost Self, this Lost Place. I did not understand them or how they pertained to me. Why did my Feets love the Grasses so?

I had attempted once to share these Flashes with the Mind Witch and she had looked at me a long Time, her Face a cold Stone. At last she told me I’d had one too many Pixy Stix. I was to be cut off from Sugars forever Goldy Cut, when I told her, looked like she was going to punch me or herself, I did not know which. Then she said she would no longer be sharing her Juniper Sap with me and twas Lady Grey from now on and she poured me a cup with her trembling Hands. Murder Fairy appeared to weep for me when I told her about my Flash. She contemplated the Blade of her Axe which she always brought with her into the Attic when she revised me. That is not a Flash , she said slowly, turning her Axe round and round, Eyes on my Eyes with what felt like sudden Pity. It is a Memory , she said. I felt a Shiver then, like I do whenever someone gives a Name to something I cannot see or touch. A Memory, I repeated . She nodded.

What does it mean ? I whispered.

But Murder Fairy had walked away sadly, clip clopping on her fairy Heels. Muttering, What have we done, what have we done ?

Insatiable, when I told her, was simply more Insatiable. Fingered my Hairs dreamily. That’s hot , she said. Tell me more , she said, about this Lost Place. About your small furry Body, the Cowslip Taste on your Tongue and the cool Shade of Shrubs and your very long Ears which hear the jumping Song of the Wind.

But I never could tell, Reader To tell of such Things was not something I sensed I could do. Not in this Attic or even in this Language, the Language of Insatiable and my Keepers, the Language of this strange Pixy Dust Place in which I’d found my Self, with only a Triangle of

Sky through which to see the World. It needed another kind of Language to tell, I sensed, one I did not know or that I knew no longer. And my human Mouth could not make its Shapes.

I ripped off my Mask, that other Face, to feel the air on my actual Face. My real Face, as the Wrong Allan might have said. Or was it? I stared down at the plastic Rabbit Mask to which I’d felt such a strange Kinship, the long Ears and Whiskers splattered now with the Wrong Allan’s Blood. The adorable Smile caked with Gristle, which made it quite afearing to behold. I threw it into the Fire that suddenly appeared at my Feets, watched it melt and hiss.

“What have I done?” I asked Pony. But it seemed he would not speak to me. Refused, it felt like. I took him out of my Pocket and stared into his ever sparkling Eyes.

“Pony,” I whispered. “What am I?”

But he seemed to behold me coldly. He judged me, perhaps, for my Oops Quite like I had many times judged Goldy Cut for hers

How alone I felt then, Reader. And very Sad I had killed a potential Friend Tyler, with whom I’d been having such good Times We’d had such a compelling Conversation about Birds and Axes and the Nature of Reality. I felt almost like we might have even kissed. Yes, he had attempted to afear me with his Bird But apart from that, all had been going so very wonderfully between us. Until he’d said his Name was Allan and I’d severed his Head quite cleanly from his Body. I can only hope he feels much better soon I can only hope his Head and Body will meet again and that tis a wonderful Reunion As I hope you and I will meet too someday, Reader. And that tis similarly Wonderful

I was just in the midst of burning my other Face, Reader, watching its violent Happiness dissolve into the crackling Flames, wondering about this Flash—this Memory— that the Feel of Grasses had just now given my Feets, when something floated out of the Dark. Someone. I froze at this approaching Shape. Could it be one of my Keepers? Oh god, could it be the Mind Witch? Could it be a Cruelle someone coming to scold me about my Oops? Could it be, at long last, the Right Allan? I tightened my Grip on Axe just in case. In my Pocket I felt Pony holding his Breath. Oh god , he murmured. His Nerves were understandably quite shattered by the Happenings of this Night. Shhh , I told him soothingly.

What is it now, what is it now? he whispered.

Another Monster. Tall as I was and quite broad-s houldered. Seeming to float right out of the cold Dark.

“Hello!” he cried. He had a pale green Face, two giant Bolts on either side of his Neck. At first he quite terrified both Pony and myself, Reader, though he was waving and waving in such a friendly way. I noticed there were Stitches above his Brow as if he had recently had some kind of Forehead Surgery. The Bolts and Stiches looked like serious Ouches, yet they did not seem to trouble him. He was practically skipping toward us, quite jollily. And then I recognized him, and when I did, a Wave of such Joy passed over me, Reader

“Aerius,” he called. “Hey Aerius!” Waving still.

“You know me?” I said to the infamous Monster.

“Sure I know you,” the Monster said. He seemed so certain. Though his Face was not smiling, was not even moving, I heard the Smile in his Voice, Reader, which was already doing some jumping, skipping thing to my Heart. “Don’t you recognize me too?” he said gently.

“Of course,” I whispered. “I watched you many a Night on the wall, dear Monster. You comforted me so much during my Attic Times—I related deeply to your many Trials and Misunderstandings. I just never expected to meet you here, in Reality. Though I wished for it.”

The Monster looked confused. “The w all?”

He took his Face off. Twas a Mask, apparently, just like the one I’d worn at the Party (but far more seamless, far more Real). Underneath was another Face entirely, Reader, and when I saw it, I felt a Wave of even greater Joy.

Twas the Boy.

The one I had encountered on the street with my Keepers back when they were first luring me away from the Garden toward the Attic, where they would imprison me I remembered his Hairs the Color of young Dandy Lions and his Eyes the Color of delicate Grasses and softest Earth and how his dreamy Expression seemed to smile so prettily at Everything and Nothing. He was smiling at me now, just like that. “You know me now, right?” he said.

“Yes,” was all I could say, with such a Smile in my own Voice. “I know you now.”

And what happened then, Reader? To my Body, I cannot even tell. Perhaps there is no Language for this or if there is I do not yet know it. Or perhaps this is another Instance where my Mouth cannot make its Shapes. But I could feel it, Reader. Singing in my Heart like Wind through Grasses. “Jonah,” we all said at the same time. Pony and myself and Jonah, in one Breath.

“Great to see you again,” Jonah said.

“So great,” I said. For suddenly I had few Words. Looking at Jonah, twas as if all the Words I knew had run from my Tongue and gone hiding under Shrubs.

“Sorry if I confused you,” he said. Pointing up to his Monster Face, suspended now above his Head. “I guess it’s not too bad a costume. I mean, for Party City.”

“It’s wonderful,” I said. What’s Party City ? Pony whispered.

“Nothing like your costume though,” he said. I waited for him to ask what I was supposed to be, as everyone seemed to like to do. But Jonah did not ask. He just repeated that it was so great, so cool, and he looked at me appreciatingly. At my velvet Blazer and my bloody Axe and my Pearls and my nervously Smiling Face. “I love it so much,” he said.

“You do?”

“Oh fuck yeah. It’s…wild.”

Oh my god , Pony whispered in my Pocket. And I truly hoped Jonah did not hear him. Sometimes Pony liked to shared his Thoughts at the most inopportune Moments.

“This Blood looks so Real,” he said, touching a Splatter of it on my velvet Shoulder.

“Yes,” I said. “Sadly I have killed the Wrong Allan this Night.” And there were Tears in my Eyes when I shared my Oops I expected him to walk away or at least swat my Nose for it as Goldy Cut often did. But Jonah just looked at me in a kind of wondrous Joy.

“Oh man, you have a Backstory and Everything?” He shook his Dandy Lion Head. “That’s fucking brilliant.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Scary good. I love the Specificity. Like the most visceral Performance Art.”

“Art,” I sighed. “Yes.” For this is exactly how my Keepers often described me. You are Art. You are Our Art. You are Ours. You are fucking Mine, k?

“Amazing,” he said. “Now I feel pretty lame, you know, going as Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s Creature , I mean. But it’s a Classic, right?”

“A Classic,” I said, looking at his Face. “Oh yes.” I could never stop looking, I felt. And he looking at me just the same.

“The Modern Prometheus,” we both said and smiled.

The Grasses brightened in his Eyes. The Moon smiled on his golden Hairs . An Urge to lick his exquisite Face passed over me. But I did not act upon it, Reader, for I would not do to Jonah what my Keepers had done to me. I would not subject him to my Longings. Unless he himself had similar Longings. Did he?

“So what are you up to?” he asked me, kicking lightly at the Grass. I heard it shiver and sigh beneath his Feets. “Heading to a Party or?”

“I have actually just been to one.” Sirens screamed in the Night Air just then. Reminding me, most unpleasantly, of the Oops

“Oh at that Frat house up there?” He shuddered. “Those guys scare the fucking shit out of me. For Real.”

“They do?” I thought of the Wrong Allan’s great Delight in my Fear at his Bird. The Guns on the red walls.

“Oh yeah. Sort of allergic to Frat houses. Allergic to everything, really.” He pulled a small box from his coat Pocket and grinned.

My Heart pounded. Aerius , I saw the box read.

“My name,” I whispered.

“Oh right. Ha! Wild,” he said. Every time Jonah said this Word, Wild, I felt a kind of singing along my Pelt. “Yeah my Aunt sends me this stuff from Canada. It’s pretty trippy but it works like a Charm. You want one? Here.”

And then, Reader, he handed me my Self. I looked at the small blue Pill Jonah had placed in my Hand. Part of me wanted to keep it forever and ever. To put it in the Pocket with Pony. Treasure it as a Memory . Perhaps I sensed, even then, how this would all End. Instead I swallowed it. We both did, Jonah and I, at the very same Time, even as Pony warned me, quietly, that this may not be the best Idea. I had already imbibed quite a bit of the Goldy Liquid by then and my Head was still swimming. I did not listen, Reader. This perhaps was part of my Undoing.

“Wow,” Jonah said, “looks like something crazy is going on over there at the Frat house. Like there was a Crime or something.” And indeed many fire trucks and police cars with blue and red flashing Lights appeared to be encircling the house quite like my Keepers had once encircled me, holding Dandy Lions. But no one appeared to be holding Dandy Lions in this case In fact men were holding Guns, entering the house in Swarms. “Yes,” I agreed uneasily. I turned to Jonah, but he was lost in looking at the Sky now, smilingly oblivious, like the Sky was telling him such lovely Secrets. Stupidly I wished to be the Sky so he could smile upon me in this way, Reader. He turned to me then, almost as if he’d heard my Thoughts. His Eyes now fixed on my Eyes. Suddenly I longed for my other Face, the Rabbit Mask I’d thrown so carelessly into the Fire. But it had long melted away.

“We should probably get the hell out of here,” he whispered.

I smiled. We. “Yes. We should.”

“Oh hey, where are your Friends anyway?”

“Friends?”

“Those Girls you were with when I saw you. You know Coraline and—”

“Oh. Them .” A most sinister Wind swept through the Trees then. I thought I heard a distant Wailing, anguished, female, pierce the Night. “I know not where they are precisely , but I suspect they are around,” I said, quite sadly.

“Did you want to go find them?”

“No.” I shook my Head. “I do not want to find them nor do I wish to ever be found by them. I want to get the Hell out of Here. With you. Wherever you are going.” The Truth of these Words, Reader, rang clear in my Voice. Made me feel Flushed and Exposed to say. As though I were not wearing Clothes and Jonah could now see the Whole of my Pelt. Could see beyond the Pelt itself, to my thrumming Heart. In my Pocket, Pony sighed. Perhaps he sensed I was Doomed.

But Jonah just smiled. “So let’s go.”

IV

Love . My Keepers had often spoke of it, Reader I love you do you love me? they might whisper, with a very low Voice as though someone else might hear. Do you love me, do you love me? Like a wild and unending Refrain. This Word in fact was everywhere in the Attic Times. In the many Songs they played for me and in the many Films they showcased for my Viewing Pleasure and the many Pages of Writings they made me read in order to, as they explained, better understand their Souls Sometimes I ate this Writing, despite its bitter Taste Sometimes I tore it up to make a kind of Snow or I relieved myself on it, watching Love become quite distorted on the Page—this was perhaps my favorite thing to do with the Writings they gave me, especially their own Especially if it contained the word Love . Mostly, though, the Word was on their Lips, glossed and grazing my Ears Twas a Question whispered as they pressed their Heads into my Chest, Foreheads butting against my Rib Cage as if it were a locked door, Reader, that they were trying to break open with their Craniums

Do you fucking love me?

Yes , I might lie to them. I love. Mainly to stop the Head Butting, Reader. To stop the Crying and the Lip Grazing, the tremulous Whispers that were always far too close to my Face. The Whispers were full of something else I could not name but I heard its Chains, I heard its Axe. I felt its pointed pink Talons and pulsing Genitals, which sounds very strange to say.

No , I might say sometimes, if I was quite tired. Because twas true but also (I admit) to be Cruelle. To lash back at them for locking me up For Revising me, which they said was a Process. A Process I was quickly learning I did not care for, not at all

And how their Faces would fall if I said I did not Love, would never Love. Murder Fairy looked at me like she would happily grab her Axe right now and put us all out of our fucking Misery . Goldy Cut winced and then she’d gulp her Juniper Sap, pretend she hadn’t heard me. The Mind Witch would weep uncontrollably, twas the only time I ever saw her Face break. I hate you , she might scream-hiss. But this was a Lie as we both knew. The Love was there in her Eyes, more legible in fact than any of her diamond Writings, wild and terrible and possessing her and she was afeared. Insatiable, on the other Hand, would only smile somewhat sadly, and say, A Challenge. I humbly accept .

Depending on how I felt that Day, I might enjoy their Face Fallings, Reader. I might even relish in it Very rarely did I feel truly sad for them That tis an Ouch to love what doesn’t love you, you see, is something I did not yet fully understand.

Now I know tis a deeper Ouch than any Razor Swipe

Tis an inside Ouch which has no Cure, perhaps, but Time

In any case, Reader, my first understanding of Love came from the Attic Times. And so you can imagine, quite understandably, that I did not think very fondly of it. That I thought Love to be quite a terrible and violent thing.

And yet.

And yet, and yet, and yet. On this Night, when I looked at Jonah walking beside me in the Dark, smoking and smiling at the Moon which suddenly seemed so much closer to the Earth, this was precisely the Word that came skipping into my Heart, making it pound and pound. It came to me again when he offered me a Cigarette. Which I did take from him, Reader, though my Keepers told me I must never smoke, Goldy Cut said twas for Whores like Lipstick, and was a I Whore? Well, Reader, Tonight I guess I was I took the Cigarette from Jonah like I had taken his small blue Pill, like I would have taken Anything. And when I couldn’t light it, how beautifully he showed me that I had to suck on it softly, see? Like this. Just the Filter. Then hold the Flame to the opposite end, sucking lightly, until it catches Fire and starts to Smoke, see?

I saw, Reader.

And when I failed to light it at first, he did not lose his Patience with me the way my Keepers did whenever I did not perform according to their many Expectations Instead he smiled and lit my Cigarette with his Cigarette Told me to place the Tip of mine against the Tip of his so that I might catch his Fire. And when he beamed at me through the twisting Smoke, well, there it was in my Heart again.

I love you.

“Sorry?” Jonah said.

“This Cigarette,” I said. “I love this Cigarette. So much.”

Twas one of my first Lies, Reader. Love has made of me a Liar. It has since made me many things, but above all, a Liar. Did he see the Love on my Face as I had so often seen the Love on my Keepers’ Faces, their Features twisted with the shameful Violence of it? If he did, he did not say. “I love it too,” Jonah said. Holding up his Cigarette thoughtfully. “Though it’ll kill me probably.”

“It’ll kill me too, I think,” I whispered. I knew, I knew.

“So we can die together,” he said and I heard a kind of Music in my Mindscape then. Those Ballads of Goldy Cut’s started to make a kind of dazzling and terrible Sense. Snippets of them began to ring in my Ears.

“I would love that,” I said. There was the Word again. Dangerous , whispered Pony. Yet how good it felt to say aloud, even in this Context.

“I would love love love that,” I said again as we made our winding Way through the Dark. With Jonah at my Side, the leering Pumpkins no longer scared me, Reader, nor did the staring Men of Bones nor the many Monsters screaming past us on their way to or from their many Parties. I was Happy, even though at this point I was likely being pursued by both my Keepers and the Polices Of the two Hunting Parties, it was my Keepers of whom I was more afeared Each time I heard a Siren approaching (and there were many), my Heart froze for I did not wish to go Jail, I did not wish to be arrested, though I was indeed sorry I had killed the Wrong Allan and continued to hope that his Condition would improve I did not wish to be parted from my new Friend so soon (Also I still had the right Allan to find and kill ). But my Heart froze even more, Reader, at the sound of any female Voice rising in the Night. I braced my Self for that Voice to sound familiar, come closer, call my Name.

“You okay?” Jonah asked worriedly.

“Oh yes, thank you.” More Lies

He grinned. “Cool. Oh wow, here we are already.” And he pointed to some sort of sad looking house up ahead.

I stared at this sad house. Truly I cared not where we were, Reader. Anywhere with you , I thought, so long as tis far from Sirens and Jails and Keepers. But this house did give me a bad Feeling “What is this Place?” I asked.

Jonah smiled. “Oh didn’t I say? This is a Poetry Bar. They’re doing a Midnight Reading.”

“Poet Tree?” A Darkness filled my Soul then.

“What’s—”

“I hate Poet Trees! And all Poets!” I said these Words so quickly, Reader, before I could even think . What I had meant to say was I will go fucking Anywhere with you . “I loathe all Poets,” I shouted instead, and again it felt as though I was not speaking of my own Will. As if these Words had come not from my Heart but from some other Place within me. The same Place, perhaps, that must Kill Allan. I looked at Jonah. Oh god, had I ruined things between us? But he just laughed. What a happy Music his Laughter made in the Night, quite like a jumping Song

“Well I hope you don’t hate me then.”

My Heart froze. “ What ? You’re not—?”

“Afraid so. I’m writing a Poem in my Head right now in fact,” he said, coming in close.

“You are?” Oh god, Reader

“About you,” he whispered into my Ear.

Oh god, Reader Melting, I was melting now.

“Poet Tree can be amazing,” he said softly. He looked at me and my Pelt grew hotter still. “Plus no one ever comes to this bar, so it’s a really chill space. Anything goes.”

“No one comes?” Twas the one positive about Poet Trees in this circumstance, I reasoned, that they might provide me good cover.

“Well, sometimes some of the Faculty come. And this Woman who always seems to have a really bad Cold. Or maybe she has Allergies. If she does, they’re worse than mine.”

“Faculty?” And I immediately recalled the first Allan. The one I had seen so long ago, in the Rose Garden, whom I had failed to kill His Physiology inspiring in me a Violence both inexplicable and Fathoms deep. “You mean Allan might come?” I asked and I felt something in me awaken, quite in spite of my Self.

“Oh the Fiction guy? Yeah, he might.”

“Then I will go,” I said immediately, gripping Axe more tightly. No more Hesitation. I wondered then if I might not be possessed by some other shadow Spirit, some other shadow Will. If my Mindscape, Reader, was not entirely my own. Though I was physically Free, far away from the Attic and its Ropes, perhaps they held me still Why did I not want to go to the bar simply to be with Jonah, even if I did hate Poet Trees? But now that I might kill Allan there, the Decision to go seemed so very clear (despite the Poet Trees ).

“I’ll go for you,” I lied, though I did want it to be t rue. The minute I began to love, Reader, I began to lie, it seems.

“Awesome!” Jonah said. “Who knows maybe you’ll even fall in Love with it.”

“Maybe,” I whispered.

“If you give it a Chance, it can fucking blow your Mind, I promise.” He smiled and took my Hand. And for a brief Moment, Reader, I forgot Everything. Wished to stay with him under the Moon, his Touch warming me through, all the way to my Heart. Twas then, just over his Shoulder, that I thought I saw my Keepers on the road, in the near Distance Faces Pale with Longings. Dresses shimmering in the Dark. “Aerius! Aerius!”

“Hey is someone—”

“We should go Inside now,” I whispered.

And so twas I, in the End, Reader, who hurried us into the bar.

V

A Poet Tree Reading , Reader

At something called a Bookstore bar

Do you see what I have done for Love (and to kill Allan)?

I entered a bar full of Poets, which is to say I entered a nearly empty bar quite like a dark Hole Twas called Inferno and how very apropos , the Mind Witch would have said (sometimes I still hear their Phrasings echoing through my Brain Chambers). Of course she, or indeed any of my Keepers, would never dare cross its Threshold, reviling Poet Trees as they did. We are allergic to Poets with few exceptions , they often said. Ondaatje and Plath, obvi. Keats and Byron, whose Ghosts we wish to fuck and Wordsworth, who wandered lonely as a Cloud. Was this where my own Revulsion came from, I wondered, but did not like to wonder long, for twas a Dark Wondering. Anyway, wasn’t it partly their Revulsion that had made me enter most willingly into this Hole?

And what a Hole twas, Reader. Clearly, no Sun had ever shone in this Place A very frowning Barman in Black blew Smoke Rings at us from his Clove Cigarette There was a table of sad looking Books whose covers were so many shades of Grey Poem Books, I realized, and grew quite cold in my Heart Later, I learned they were not even called Books, Reader, but Volumes There were also these very thin pamphlets called Chapbooks, their covers made of a dreary-colored construction Paper, their Pages bound with a most dismal Ribbon. How these Chappy Books made me shudder, Reader The way they could not even stand up by themselves on the tables, but had to be propped up by Life Supports (or Book Stands as Jonah called them). I would have just stood there at the door in Horror, were it not for Jonah, gently tugging on my Hand. No jolly Music played here as it did in the Frat house. Instead a kind of funereal Hymn which you couldn’t jump to, Reader You couldn’t even bounce There was a Woman in a Turban, sneezing alone in a Corner, her table quite littered with Kleenexes. Everything about the Place, its Atmosphere, was making Pony quite suicidal. I even took the Razor from him, and placed it in my other Pocket, as a Precaution.

Jonah, meanwhile, had led us to a crooked table where four Men sat, brooding. They all wore black Trenchy Coats, their Cruelle Eyes were lined with pretty Makeups and their Talons, Reader, were painted a chipped Black darker than Midnights.

Poets, I knew instantly and shuddered within my Self.

Suddenly, I felt I must go, Reader. I must run, in spite of my Love. Allan was not here after all so I could not kill him No one was here, in fact, but the Woman with the Allergies and these Poets Each was holding a tall glass of fizzing amber Liquid from which they took the most somber Sips. Not at all like the flushed, happy Monsters at the Frat house who drowned their Insides with this sort of Liquid, cheering each other on as they imbibed it from a Hose.

When the Poets saw Jonah, their Mouths made such sneering Shapes.

“Hey guys!” Jonah said. So friendly and lovely. I felt such an Urge in this Moment to lick his Face. He was the only bright and beautiful thing in this dank Lair of Poet Tree where no Trees grew But these Poets, they just blinked. One wore a pretty Pearl on his Ear that I immediately wished to steal.

“Jonah,” they hissed. “Who’s your Friend ?” I did not like the way they said Friend , Reader.

“This is Aerius,” Jonah said, taking my Hand.

“ Aerius? ” Though their Mouths still sneered, I could tell these Poets were intrigued. A dull Light there in their Cruelle Eyes when they beheld me that was not there before.

“Aerius,” one of them repeated dubiously. He appeared to be their Leader, like the Mind Witch was. “Is that derived from Greek Mythology or something? A Warping of the Name of some lesser God?”

The other three smiled, smoke coiling from their Nostrils in a most sinister Synchronicity.

“Tis an Allergy Medicine,” I said. And I threw the box onto the crooked table, right in their Midst. Jonah meanwhile squeezed my Hand tightly and smiled at me. May I write about this only? About Jonah’s Smile and his Hand in mine and his Dandy Lion Hairs forever falling in his grassy Eyes? Sadly, I think not Mother says the Flower Book is not for Romance , tis for Violences , which are imminent

“Clever,” the Leader was saying. Contemplating my Body now, my inky Pectorals and the Pearls at my Throat. “Very post-postmodern .” He said this quite like an Insult. “You must be a fan of Pastiche .”

“I love all Pastiches,” I said. “Especially Eclairs but Millefeuilles are quite nice too.”

I smiled at him, licked my Lips a bit.

“Funny,” he said, not smiling even a Drop. They were now all looking at my Axe. Not nervously. Almost as if they were mildly amused by the Killing Implement, curious.

“Quite the Tribute to Kafka,” they murmured. “Literalizing the Metaphor so to speak.” They sneered again. “You must be a Fiction.”

“He’s a Friend of the Fictions,” Jonah said.

“A Friend of the Fictions is no Friend of ours!” roared one of the Poets, pounding his Fist on the table. Pale and Freckled. Most vexed, yet quite handsome in his Agitation. His shining Orange Hairs reminded me very pleasantly of Carrots

“I am no Friend of the Fictions,” I told him, crouching down to his Level now so that I could look him right in his grey, glittering Eye. “Not at all.”

“What are you then?” he whispered.

“Not another Poet surely?” one of the Others offered wearily.

I shook my Head, my Face very close to the Carrot-haired Boy’s Face, which was a little a feared now. “I hate Poets.” I said, smiling. “And all Poet Trees. I find them to be very vile and st upid.” I reached out to his Ear and he immediately closed his Eyes to savor this, my Touch.

“May I have this?” I whispered, grasping the Pearl Earring that had first caught my Eye. “I enjoy its Iridescence.”

He nodded, Tears falling from his Eyes, even as the Others whispered, “But Colby, your Grandmother!” I took it, stood up, slipped the Pearl into my Ear Flesh (a Hole there awaiting it as if twere Destiny) and thanked him heartily.

They all stared at me now, especially the Leader.

At last, he kicked a wobbly stool toward me, his Eyes fixed on my Face in a new Way. “You and your Friend are welcome to join us. Most welcome,” he said to Jonah, though he was looking entirely at me. I looked at the small crooked table over which he seemed to reign.

Let’s go, Jonah , I thought. Let me lick your Body under the Moon. Away from here. Allan is not here to kill and perhaps my Keepers have moved along in their Search. But I could not say this, for Jonah was made so happy by the Invitation

“Awesome.” He grinned. “Aerius you sit, and I’ll grab us some drinks from the bar.”

“You’re leaving me?” I said, quite panicked.

“Just to go to the bar. What do you want? I’m going to have a soda but I can get you anything. Morpheus makes great Manhattans so I hear.”

I looked at the Man behind the bar, the very frowning one we had seen when we entered, still blowing his Rings of Smoke. He was now scribbling in a red Notebook by the light of a half-melted candle. His Lips twisted cruelly in a kind of obscene Joy, delighting perhaps in his Genie-yes I had seen such Joy on the Faces of my Keepers when they were doing their Writings Oh god

“There is a Goldy Liquid,” I said and I squeezed his Hand again, desperately. “With many golden Flecks. I’d like a barrel of this, please.”

He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. Hey, maybe that’ll get you to read with us.”

“Yes, maybe,” I agreed. “Just hurry.” Not understanding at the Time what he meant, you see, by Read . I must say that to you now, Reader, in my Defense. Twas another one of my many Misunderstandings

Jonah ran off quite happily toward the bar and I watched him go. Pony watched him too, sighing quite sadly. I attempted to soothe him with some whispered Words which I only hoped were true. He will return, don’t be afeared. He would never leave us .

A T hroat cleared. I turned and saw the Poets were all staring at me.

“So. You’re reading , are you? And what form will this Oratory Delight take?” This from the Leader, grinning nastily.

“Excuse me?”

“What will you read , Fiction?” asked another. A tall Blondy one, clearly his Henchman.

“He has told us he is not a Fiction,” the Carrot-haired one said.

“Or even a Friend of the Fictions,” added a blue-haired one, grinning though he appeared to have false Tears streaming from one Eye.

“I have read many Pages,” I said. “Though I have eaten more than I have read,” I confessed. “And definitely I have defecated more than I have eaten.”

They laughed now, quite in spite of themselves. I laughed too.

“Are you for Real?” the blue-haired one asked.

“Oh yes,” I told him. For at the Moment, Reader, among these laughing Poets, I truly felt I was. I put my Axe on the table. They contemplated it coolly. Perhaps they were more impressed by it now though tis very hard to say with Poets. “Do you know if Allan is here?” I asked. “Or will be coming soon?”

“Allan? You mean the Fiction Prof?” the Leader said. “No, he won’t come.”

“No Fictions ever come to our Readings,” Blondy seethed.

“They would rather die than do that,” agreed Carrot.

“He came that one Time, remember?” said Blue. “At the start of Term?”

“Just to be Polite,” Blondy hissed. “None of the Fictions ever visit this Realm of Poesie,” he said to me quite bitterly. “Too busy writing their Pap!” And they all raised their glasses full of bitter fizzing Liquid and drank. Looked at me, narrowing their Eyes. Perhaps they thought I was a Fiction after all. “Why do you ask about Allan anyway?”

“Oh,” I said, “because I am going to kill him.” When is Jonah coming back? Pony kept asking from my Pocket.

“ Kill him?”

“Yes. I thought I had, but sadly I had not. Twas the Wrong Allan as it turned out.” I took a Sip of one of their many ales, while they all stared at me in quite a new Way. Twas not entirely unpleasant, Reader, for Pony or for my Self. I have always enjoyed such Eyes on me, tis true, even if they are Poets’ Eyes. Tis what my Keepers have called a Fatal Flaw. The thing inside you that you cannot control, that will be your Undoing , they often whispered, most huskily. Perhaps, Reader, my Enjoyment of Eyes would be my Undoing

“Are you reading?” I asked them, for this seemed to be a favorite Question among their Kind. They all nodded, still lost in looking at me. And then I noticed the Pages, Reader. Pages on the crooked table and in their Hands. Slightly crumpled and torn from intense Handling. Quite like the Pages my Keepers had given me to read, as if they were offering me their Insides Suddenly, the Lights at one end of the bar brightened revealing a Stage. A Microphone. How cold I grew in my Soul, Reader, when I saw this Stage and Microphone

Jonah returned with my double shot of Goldy Liquid and I drank this down in two seconds. “Whoa,” he said, smiling. “Someone’s excited about the Reading.”

I looked into his earthy Eyes and my Heart, Reader, did that skippy jumpy thing again.

“Let us go from here,” I whispered. Forgetting quite about my Keepers at this Point. Forgetting even that I must Kill Allan.

“Right now?” Jonah said. “But the Reading hasn’t even started.”

“Actually, you can’t leave,” Carrot said, smiling. “None of us can. Looks like we’re under Lockdown again. Just got the alert from Campus security.” He held up his phone triumphantly.

“Oh no really?” Jonah said. “What this time?”

“Not another Gunman?” Blondy asked.

Carrot shrugged. “Someone armed on Campus. A Violent Occurrence . Possible Homicide.”

“ Possible Homicide? What does that mean?” Blondy pressed.

“I’m just reading an email , Gunnar.”

And then what Mother calls the Energy in the Room shifted. I felt it shift, Reader.

They all looked back at Axe, sitting on the table among their crumpled Pages and grey Volumes. Her Blade shining with the Blood of the Wrong Allan thanks to the Stage Lights.

“How terrible,” I murmured. “What a most awful Oops.” Tears filled my Eyes a little then. Tears I could not conceal. At the Memory of Wrong Allan’s Laughter and his Smoke of Bubblegums and his Head rolling away from his Body And these Poets, they observed these Tears. This is the most terrible thing about Poets. They miss Nothing .

“Perhaps we should begin the Reading?” I said to divert their Eyes from Axe.

And this was the only Time, Reader, that I have ever encouraged Poet Trees.

The Reading. My Soul shudders to recall it, Reader Twas a most vile Experience for Pony and my Self. For Pony perhaps even more than I, for he did not have the benefit of my Goldy Liquid. Oh my fucking god , I heard him whisper. Will it never cease? Is he going to read Another? Oh my god he’s going to read Another. Tell me please that this one will not be in a fake Tree Language? Oh I will suicide if he does, I care not . And so on, he lamented, in my Pocket I was so thankful, Reader, that I had placed the Razor far beyond the reach of his Hoof. I wondered if I should leave. But between what they called the Lockdown and my Keepers likely hunting for me just beyond the doors, I knew I must stay where I was, hearing the many Poet Trees emanating from their pale Mouths in their overly cadenced Voices Looking back on it, I’m not sure how I survived Well, in Truth, I do remember. Jonah. Sitting beside me, his beautiful, dreaming Face. He watched each of his Fellows with genuine Delight, always smiling, always clapping and whistling fiercely at the End. “So cool,” he said, whenever a Poet sat down and they quite ignored him.

“I am hoping you will read next,” I said to him, not believing that I was actually encouraging more Poet Trees. Such was the extent of my Love for him.

“Oh I don’t know,” Jonah sighed, shaking his Head. “Everyone’s been so good.”

“Go for me?” I pleaded.

Reader, I cannot say how wonderful he was. I do not know about his actual Poet Trees, for I heard them not. I could hear Nothing, Nothing, but the rush and roar of my own Blood, the beat of my own Heart. Another Music played in my Mindscape over the terrible Music in the bar so that I heard its vile Sound no more. I heard only this lovely Mindscape Music, humming through me, so that every Hair of my Pelt stood quite on its End. It was Jonah who created this Effect. Jonah in his torn Jacket and black T-Shirt that said Joy Division . Jonah, his Dandy Lion Hairs made even more Dandy Lion-like by the Lights. His hulking Body hunched over the Mic he was far too tall for. I clapped for him wildly. Banged Axe upon the crooked table. Whistled Reader, and Pony did too.

And when he came back to the table, I took him by his Hands and I said, “You are the only Poet whose Trees I can stand.” I did not say that this was because I could not hear them, Reader. I did not share this Part. Love made me a Liar, as I have said.

“Was he not wonderful?” I asked the others, my Hand on Axe, which they perceived.

“Oh yes,” they murmured, looking from me to Axe. “Quite, quite.”

“Well, it’s your Turn now,” Jonah said to me, grinning.

“My Turn?”

“Oh yes,” they all hissed, suddenly glaring at me. “ Tis your Turn.”

Jonah laughed. “Oh, I was only kidding, guys. Aerius isn’t a—”

“All the more Reason,” the Leader snapped. “If he is not a Poet and not a Fiction, then what is he? Perhaps his Reading will illuminate us.” And the Poets smiled then, somewhat Cruelly. Losing their Fear of Axe briefly at the thought of my Pain.

“Aerius you really don’t have to,” Jonah said quietly. Please don’t , Pony whispered.

“Your Audience of Dust awaits,” the Leader taunted, waving his Hand at the empty bar. Quite bitterly he said this, Reader. Twas a Gauntlet thrown. Yet his gleaming Eyes were fixed on me, all their Eyes were, including Jonah’s. And I relished it, Reader, despite Pony’s Protestations. My Enjoyment of Eyes, he cried, would be the Death of us both

I took Axe with me to the Stage, tucking her in my Blazer, for I did not trust to leave her with Poets. At the Microphone, I smiled at the Darkness. Apart from our table, there was no one in the bar but the Woman dabbing at her Nose with many Kleenexes. And the Barman, Morpheus, watching me stonily. He had set down his little red Notebook. I looked at the small Candle blazing on the low table beside me, its tiny Flame. Reader, in truth, I did not know what to do There was such Expectation on their Faces. An awful Desire for me to Perform. And this Desire, I’m sorry to say, brought me back to my Attic Times When Goldy Cut or Murder Fairy or Insatiable or especially, especially the Mind Witch, wished for me to say Things Very specific Words and Phrases they wished me to say, and the more they wished, the more I found I could not speak, I refused. And now here on this Poet Tree Stage, I was experiencing something similar: a terrible Want rising from my Audience.

I froze

A soft bit of Laughter now in the Dark. From one of the Poets, I did not know which Someone shaking his Head. Whispering “Fraud,” whispering “Joke,” whispering “Pastiche Trash,” whispering “Probably a Fiction after all.” The Woman with the Kleenexes blew her Nose pointedly. And then I discerned Jonah’s Face. Smiling up at me. Nodding such Encouragement, though I was saying Nothing at all. Nodding as if I had already begun my Reading. As if I was right now blowing his Mindscape to a new and holy Place.

Suddenly I recalled something my Keepers had done in the Attic with the Letters of Feedback they’d received from Allan, which they often read aloud, quite bitterly. What they did with these Letters was a kind of Poem, they said, better than anything the Poets in the Program could manage. A kind of Performance Art , I remember they had called it.

And so I leapt off the Stage. Back in the bar, I gathered all the crumpled Pages from the Poet’s table. Some Pages I even took directly from their Fists. And they let me, Reader, their Hands going slack at my Touch. This is something I have noticed about my Self, a Power I seem to possess at times. That I can take things from People and they let me, almost as if my reaching out puts them into a kind of Trance of Willingness. I would give you fucking Anything , my Keepers often told me. It is I who am in a kind of Jail , they said. You make of my Human Will a Puddle of Nothing. I did not believe them at the Time. For wasn’t I the one locked up? And weren’t they the ones free to go skipping out into the World whenever they pleased? And yet, now that I was out in the World, it seemed there was something to it. I remembered the little Monster giving me his Face Glitter, the Wrong Allan offering me his Pen of Vapours. And here now in Inferno, these Poets giving me their Pages. “What are you doing?” they whispered, handing them over. But I had moved along, was now gathering all the Chappy Books with their construction paper Covers and their many Titles, A Musing, A Meditation, A Prelude, An Addendum to the Compendium. I walked over to the Woman’s table. Crouched down to her side so that we were Eye to inflamed Eye.

“It seems,” I said to her, “that you have a number of Allergies.”

She nodded, lost in staring at my Chest area, the ring of inky Arrows aimed at my Breast, which were also the spokes of a smiling Sun. I took her H and, damp and small-fingered, and placed it there, upon the Orb. I felt her Fingers jump a little at the velvety Feel of my Pelt and I pressed deeper. “Have you ever considered,” I whispered into her Ear, “that you are allergic to Poet Trees?” She shook her Head in Wonder.

“Tis worth pondering,” I said. And I took the many Kleenexes from her table, adding them to my Bounty. She let me, her watery Eyes even seeming to say Take . On my way back to the Stage, I snatched the small red Notebook from the Barman Morpheus, who was right then scribing in it with his fountain Pen. Though there was a Wondering on his Face, he gave me the Notebook, as well as another shot of the Goldy Liquid. “On the house,” he said dreamily as I drank it down at the bar without breaking our intense Contact of Eyes.

Back on the Stage, I gathered these Pages and Chappy Books into the highest Pile, on the low table at my side. Topped the Pile prettily with the many Kleenexes. I picked up one of the Volumes sitting atop. Twas called Word Lake , a Meandering . I held it up, smiling into the Dark. Then I held it to the Fire of the stubby, half-melted Candle It caught a most lovely Flame

And this Flame I tipped toward the pile of Poet Trees

Reader, how lovely was the Fire, I cannot even say High and leaping and bright in that dark Hole of a bar Twas a Fire quite like the one in which I had thrown my other Face. All those Chappy Books and crumply Pages. All those scribbled Words, which my Keepers often described as Heart’s Blood. My Insides , they said. My Soul .

All of this burning so very brightly

I looked at my Audience. The Question, What is he doing? What is he doing? ceased to pervade the Air. Now it seemed Everyone was too caught up in the Flames. My Poem, Reader, had rendered them quite speechless Were they horrified or impressed? I could not tell by their Faces, so open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

Suddenly I heard the Sound of a single Clap in the Dark. The Leader, he was clapping and clapping for me. Morpheus joined him. Then the Woman, all of them clapping wildly. And I felt Happy, shamefully so. For they were clapping for me, for my Art. So excited was I that I began to jump, quite in spite of my Self, and I kicked over the table on which the Fire was burning and then I poured the remainder of my Goldy Liquid onto the Flames

More wild Applause and I relished them, Reader. The Leader rose from his chair, followed quickly by his Entourage. Even the Woman rose, no longer red nosed or watery-eyed, Reader, for she appeared to be miraculously cured of her Allergies All were standing and clapping except…

Jonah. Who remained seated in something like a shocked Stupor. Looking up at the burning Poems with a kind of Horror on his lovely Face. Perhaps he was also looking at the curtains just now catching Fire. For you see we were all so worked up by the Beauty of the many Poet Trees going up in Smoke, that we (and I include my Self and Pony) failed to see the Conflagration spreading, Reader. Failed to see the whole Stage in Flames.

Jonah stood up, looked at me. On his Face was no S mile anymore. He turned and walked out of the bar.

“Jonah! Wait,” I called out, but my Voice was lost in the Roar of the Blaze and the greater Roar of Applause from the Poets. They bounded on to the Stage now, pouring Whiskey onto the Fire so that the Flames grew taller still.

My Reading was quite beyond my Control at this Point, Reader It now belonged to what my Keepers often called the Collective

I ran out of the bar, no longer caring if my Keepers were out there. Calling and calling his Name, though I heard the Poets shouting for me to come back. They were still laughing in wicked Delight at the bright, jumping Fire I had made of their Poet Trees.

VI

Outside of the burning Inferno, there were blue and red Lights flashing everywhere. Sirens, just like the ones I had heard after I killed the Wrong Allan, screamed all around me, fast approaching. There was also the Sound of actual Screams. People had gathered nearby to point and gawk at the Blaze. They were so caught up in looking at the Fire that they did not notice me taking my hasty Leave, keeping an Eye out for Jonah and my Keepers. No Sign of Them Or of him Not anywhere in this flashing screaming World

Oh god, why had I come out here? Risked my Pelt in this Way?

And then I saw him in the Distance, Reader. Sitting on a dark Hillside. Smoking his Cigarette and watching the Fire.

“Jonah,” I cried, and ran toward him.

He appeared to be languishing in some sort of very large, somber Park, Reader. A sloping Expanse of Grasses and weeping Trees. Many grey slabs of Stone grew out of the Earth like strange Flowers. Names and dates were etched on them. The Dead, I knew, lay sleeping beneath. Jonah sat in their Midst seeming to grow out of the Earth like the flowering Stones.

“Jonah,” I said, quite out of Breath.

“Hey,” he said, but he did not look at me. His Voice was cold and flat.

I sat beside him on the cold Grass. “Why did you leave? Is something wrong?”

He shook his Head at the Blaze, sighed.

“I just don’t love that you burned the bar down I guess,” he said at last. Pulling the Grasses out of the Earth idly with his lovely Hands. I heard the screaming of each Blade.

“And all that Poet Tree,” he continued. “I mean, I love a lot of those Volumes, you know?”

The table of sad grey Books came back to me. “You do?”

“Of course. I’m a Poet, remember?”

Oh yes. I had forgotten this

“So. You didn’t like my Reading then?” You don’t like me?

He looked at me. “I’m just not into Destruction , you know. I like Creation way more.”

But I am a Creation , I could tell him. For had my Keepers not told me repeatedly that I was? I didn’t quite understand what they meant by this, Reader, for they never explained. But perhaps Jonah would like me again if he knew. Perhaps he might even love me. But then I would also have to tell him about my Keepers and the Attic Times and the Lost Self I believed I once was, the Lost Place from which I had come, and this I did not wish to do This I felt I should keep to my Self.

“But I created a pretty Fire,” I offered at last lamely.

“Yeah. It was pretty. It’s just…you destroyed so much to make it.”

“Creation inevitably involves Destruction,” I whispered, thinking of all the Violences I had endured in the Attic The many Violences of Revision “Axes. Ropes.”

“ Ropes ?” he repeated. “Jesus. Look, I know it’s a kind of Style but it just seemed kind of recklessly provocative and violent to me. Unnecessary. I didn’t understand the point is all.”

I recalled some of these very Words on the Letters of Feedback that my Keepers received from Allan about their Writings. I looked back at the bar, still burning brightly, though Men in helmets with hoses were now storming the Place in large numbers.

“I’ve disappointed you,” I whispered.

“No you haven’t,” he said, looking away. “The Fire was cool. It’s…just different. Than what I normally go for is all.”

“Different,” I repeated. And this Word to me seemed worse than all the Words he had used before. Different , Pony repeated sadly in my Pocket. I see .

“But hey my Peers were super into it. Still are, looks like.” And he gestured at them still standing outside the bar, still cheering in a trench-y huddle. “And they’re not easy to impress, trust me.” He shook his Head at the clumps of dead Grass in his Hands. “You’re in with them forever.”

“I don’t care about them,” I mumbled, still looking at Jonah.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Jonah smiled, nudging me. “You seemed pretty into their Reaction. Pretty happy with it.”

I shook my Head, even as I recalled myself smiling on the Stage. Delighting in their roaring Claps. Basking in all their Cruelle Eyes on me. My Fatal Flaw Reader My Undoing

“I don’t care what they think,” I lied. I care about you. “I care about…”

“What?” He looked at me now, waiting.

“I care about…what you think,” I stammered at last.

Jonah laughed sort of painfully. “Oh, man, you really shouldn’t. I’m Nobody really. No one likes me. My Work, I mean,” he added quickly. “You should hear them in Workshop. Not that I let it get to me or A nything.” He shook his Head again at the Grass.

I love you. “I loved your Reading,” I told him.

“You did?”

“Yes. I thought it was beautiful.” And I prayed that he would not ask me to repeat a Line of it, Reader, to ask what about his Reading I particularly enjoyed. For I had taken in none of his Words. Only his beautiful Mouth making Word Shapes. Only his sculpted Arms and his golden Pelt Hairs shining in the Light. If he asked me such a Question now, I’d be in Trouble. It was something my Keepers often did, Reader whenever they shared their Writings. What did you enjoy SPECIFICALLY? they would ask me. What Aspect IN PARTICULAR ? And their Eyes were Wild with Need, their Faces quite shiny and slick with a kind of Wanting Sweat. What did you enjoy MOST?

Twas a fine Receptacle for my Defecations , I was often tempted to say. Though mostly I stayed silent, which made them wilder still, more desperate for my Specificity. But Jonah would not ask this sort of Question of me, I knew. Twas enough for him that I found it beautiful.

“Beautiful?” he asked. I could see him blushing even in the Dark.

“So Beautiful,” I said. And I brushed his golden Hairs away from his Eyes. And he let me, Reader. His Gaze locked with mine. Side by side in the damp cold Grasses in which no Dandy Lions grew. But for the first Time I cared nothing for Dandy Lions or for Grasses.

He smiled. “Really? You think so?”

“For Real,” I said.

The Flames leapt higher in the Sky, making the Night’s deep Blue look licked with a kind of Orange Light. Sirens roared somewhere below but to me in this Moment they were a kind of Music. Someone, in the great Distance, might have even been screaming my Name and I cared not. Jonah lay back in the Grass, and I lay back with him. Both of us looking up at the cold Moon.

He turned to me and smiled. I felt dizzy. Was he going to tell me he loved me?

“I wish Sam thought so,” he whispered.

“Sam?” I said.

And then he turned away from me quite suddenly. Looking down at the Flames, the many Men attempting to put it out with hoses. A Coldness suddenly. I felt the Night’s chill Wind.

“Who is Sam?” I asked in a small Voice.

“She’s in the Program,” Jonah said. “A Fiction, super cool. I guess you haven’t met her yet?” He lit another Cigarette, took a Drag.

I shook my Head. “I have not.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. She kind of keeps to herself.” And then he sort of smiled to himself, Reader. I did not like that we were talking about this Sam. Or the Look on his Face when he talked about Her. It did something quite painful to my Heart. Twas like the Ring of Arrows on my Chest had become Real. I suddenly felt their sharp Points digging into my Flesh.

“She doesn’t like my Poet Tree,” he sighed. “Or me, I think. She likes my Cigarettes though.” And he sort of laughed painfully again.

“She sounds very stupid,” I said quietly.

He smiled at the Sky. Turned back to me.

I reached out and stroked the side of his Face. “She sounds very fucking stupid,” I whispered.

“She’s really smart,” he whispered back. But his Eyes were on my Eyes. The Grasses there Soft and Bright. Forgiving me for my Fire, for my Destruction. Full of Yes .

I leaned in further.

And he closed his Eyes, parted his Lips. And this was full of Yes too.

.

There are Times, Reader, when there are no Words at all. When only the Language of before Times will do. The Language of Wind and Grasses that I can no longer speak. Now I have only this broken Language of my Keepers that cannot capture what I felt. Jonah’s hot Mouth on mine, our Bodies pressed together on the cold fragrant Grasses beneath the low Moon. His soft Hairs between my Fingers and his Fingers running through my own Hairs. If I close my Eyes, I am back there. Back to the feel of his golden Arms around me and my Arms around him and his velvet Pelt so hard and warm against mine. And him quite into me, I have to say. Oh my god , he whispered each time my Mouth or my Hand touched him. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. I love you, he whispered. I think he said these Words to me. Though perhaps I imagined it, Reader. Pony claims to have no Recollection at all of this Moment. My only other Witness was the Moon and she speaks that other Language.

I imagin e he said I love you.

Sometimes, my Keepers said, we imagine the things we want so very vividly that we think they are Real. But they are not. Tis a Cruelle Game of the Mindscape we cannot help but play. When we are lonely, especially Yet I do imagine it, Reader. Here now, alone in the Writing Shed, I imagine again and again that Jonah is still with me. That we are still there on the damp Grasses of that Hill, on that Night of Monsters and Fire, lying together among the many Dead and their flowering Stones.

I imagine or remember all of it again though whether tis Real or not, I cannot tell now.

It felt Real, is all I can say.

It still does.

VII

Mother, as I have said, does not wish me to write a Romance Tis not at all the Purpose of this Project (Mother sometimes calls what we do together a Project ). Or rather, this Collaborative , her preferred Term. No, no. This Book, Mother says, tapping the Vaginal Flowers shimmering so forbiddingly on its Face, is where I am to record the Violences and Wonders of the Lost Self, the Lost Place alone. Record them for Mother’s eventual Perusal so that she may soon distill and elevate them into Art. So that she may make what she calls her great Come Back. So that she may give a great roaring Fuck You to those who have forgotten about Mother, who have mocked and underestimated her many Talents. This is why I must Tap the Wound and the Lost Self alone is what I must Tap. All you can remember of your Experience in that Other Body, in that Other Life. The Violences especially. Anything else, Mother says, is merely a Rambling. A Digression. My own Selfishly Indulgent Whimsy

But…I cannot help it, Reader

I cannot help but write about Jonah if only to return to that magical Night in my Mindscape. Do you understand this, Reader? Do you have a Night like this in your own Life? One you return to? Play over and over again like a much-beloved Song? Even though you know you cannot go back, any more than I can go back to that Lost Place, that Lost Self. And so to go back, to imagine it, as my Keepers or as Mother might say, is Bittersweet. A painful, futile Exercise. But this is my Book, is it not? Tis in my Hands for now. And so for now, I will write what I desire. To you and you alone, Reader

Given that you are my Friend, I know you will forgive me.

So let me go back again, to a low Moon over a hillside full of cold Stones and Flowers. Lying on the Grass, tangled up with Jonah, his Pelt warm under my Hands. Jonah’s Hands tracing my chest Arrows, each one pointing to my Heart, a Heart he already owned. Jonah’s Lips crushing Mine, I could be crushed forever. Jonah’s Ear which I nibbled softly like a Cowslip. His hard lovely Cock in my Mouth, better than any Keeper Candy I’d ever sucked. His golden Body against me and how I felt I could never get enough of his Pelt and he could never get enough of mine, Reader, and unlike with my Keepers, I offered him every last bit of my Self. Quite willingly. And he offered Himself to me too, Reader. His Breath shuddery in my Ear, warming me through even as I shivered, whispering that I was beautiful, that this was such a T rip, the wildest thing he’d ever done.

We lay entwined together for several Hours, stopping only now and then to smoke Cigarettes, to blow the vaporous Clouds into each other’s Mouths, which was my new favorite thing to do. And if there were still Sirens screaming in the Air, I heard them not. If my own Name was being cried out by four Mouths all Night long, I tuned it out mostly.

Aerius, where the fuck are you?

Aerius, come back!

Aerius, I love you.

Aerius, I have so many Dandy Lions, please come and eat them all from my Hands!

None of this was especially Audible to me. I heard only the soft Breathing of Jonah. I heard only the many Musics that he played for us both on his iphone. He, like my Keepers, enjoyed what he called a Playlist. Sort of my Dreaming Songs , he said. But they’re good for this too . Because of my previous Associations, I did not care much for Playlists, but twas not torturous to hear (mostly) because the Sounds were all braided together with Jonah’s Sighs, his Moans of Pleasure, making a larger transcendent Music that I replay in my Mindscape still.

My own Moans and Sighs too.

Indeed, there were Moments in this Night when I felt such Happiness, such Ecstasy, such Love, that a strange Animal Cry emanated from my Lips over which I had no Control. Flashes kept coming back too. Memories as Murder Fairy called them. Of velvety Grasses. A soft Wind through my Pelt Hairs. A Mud at my Feets for kicking. A delicious Strawberry Leaf between my Lips, and the taste of the Berry itself. These Flashes overcame me so powerfully as we held each other that I had to pull away from him at Times. For I felt I was falling, Reader. And if I did not pull away, I should fall Forever.

“What’s wrong?” he asked later, tracing my Lips with his Finger.

“Nothing, nothing,” I lied.

“This is so wild,” he said. “I know it’s crazy but I almost wonder if I’m dreaming you.”

“Dreaming me?” Which was funny, Reader. For I wondered if I was dreaming him too.

“You’re just so….”

And I waited. Breath held. What?

But he just shook his Head in Wonder. “Where did you come from anyway? Besides Morocco and Japan and the Isle of Man and Argentina, I mean. It’s almost like you’re…” he broke off, Eyes lost in looking at my Face.

“What?”

“I don’t know…like you’re from some other World,” he whispered.

I felt my Heart jump . “I am,” I said softly. “From some other World.” And I longed to tell him everything then, Reader. About the Flashes. The Lost Place.

“Tell me,” Jonah whispered, as if he’d heard my Thoughts. He kissed me softly as if to give me Courage.

“I don’t have the Language,” I breathed, shaking my Head. “But it’s beautiful,” I said, looking at only him. “And you’re taking me back there.”

And he smiled and kissed me again.

VIII

I awoke for the first time in my Life with a Smile on my Face, Reader As I felt the late morning Sun warming my Pelt, I wondered if the Events of the Night before had been Nothing but a wild Dreaming. If I was still, after all, trapped in the Attic, firmly in the Realm of my Keepers who would be coming in at any Moment, to bring me my morning Pixy Stix I became afeared to open my Eyes.

“Hey,” someone whispered, a Smile in their Voice. My Heart warmed.

I opened my Eyes. Jonah. Wearing my white Nightdress. Behind him, the Sun streaming in beautifully from a large, unwashed window. His Dandy Lion Hairs a glorious golden Chaos. Bits of Grass still stuck in it from making out on a Hillside with me. Oh how I smiled then How my Heart burst with Joy

“Hey,” I whispered, reaching up to kiss him. For the feel of his Lips on mine, in the warm Light of the Sun, this would make it fully Real.

But he quickly got up before I could kiss him, Reader. Walked into the kitchen, mumbling something about making Coffee He really needed it today, did I?

“Me?” No, I did not need it today. I only needed to kiss him, to understand why he’d suddenly walked away from me. “Sure,” I said.

For a while I watched his Back as he made this Coffee, my Dress falling off his lovely Shoulder exposing the tender Flesh that only last Night, I’d lightly scratched with my Talons. There were raised pink Etchings still, on his Pelt. And yet I felt he was very far from me now.

“It looks beautiful on you,” I said of the dress. “So much better than it does on me.”

“I don’t know about that.” And he turned back and smiled. But something was off in the Smile, I felt it in my own Heart. He came back with two chipped mugs of steaming black Bile. Set one on the little table beside me. Visit Alaska the mug said. Quickly I reached up to kiss him, “thank you,” I said, but my Kiss was not reciprocated. He had only allowed me to kiss him as I sometimes allowed my Keepers to do, a look of Patience, Tolerance on his Face. He then took his mug and went to sit on a large beany bag in the far Corner of the room.

“I hope you like it,” he said.

I looked at him, sitting in his Corner, as far away from me as it was possible to sit, cradling his cup of Bile. “ Like it ?”

“The Coffee?”

“Oh.” I took a sip and tried not to make a Face at its bitter Taste For it had been made by my Love and I must drink it, even if it did taste like the vilest of Acids

“Delicious,” I lied miserably. What is happening?

He looked at me. Smiled sadly. “Look, Aerius,” he began. And already, I could feel the Breath leaving my Body, Reader. Could feel my Pelt turning to cold Stone, even as I lay in the bright Sun. “I really enjoyed what we did,” he whispered. Not even looking at me, Reader. Looking down into his cup. “And I like you.”

Like , Reader? Last Night hadn’t he said he loved ? I thought of my Keepers. So nakedly disappointed when I did not reciprocate their Affections. I took another Sip of his hot bitter Poison so that he would not see my Face, any Evidence of my Heart breaking there.

“I like you too,” I said. “I liked what we did too.” These were Lies. I love you and I love what we did , I wanted to scream into the Sun. Present Tense.

“But I have to tell you.” He looked up at me now. And I knew what he had to tell me. Could even sense it. Like a Story, a terrible Fiction I was trapped in.

“What?” I whispered.

“Well, I sort of have Feelings for someone else too.” He looked away from me, Reader. Took an impossibly long Sip from his cup. Surely he would die from such a Sip. Surely it would poison him.

“Who?” But I knew, of course. Remembered the Name from the Night before. How he’d uttered it smiling and how, for the first time, I had not liked his S mile.

Sam ? Pony hissed from the Pocket of my Blazer, hanging on the wall. I must have said it aloud with him, for Jonah nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just. I can’t help what’s in my Heart, you know?”

“I do,” I said. Because you are in my Heart. And I can’t help that. “And am I there too, in your Heart?” And for the first time in my Life, Reader, I truly hated my Self. For asking such a Question. For not being able to help it. I thought of Goldy Cut, Face punched in with Misery, looking possessed by some awful Spirit, Am I in here? she’d whisper, pressing her small, gloved Hand to my Chest. Sometimes I took Pity on her.

Of course , I’d lie. And she saw the Lying in my Eyes and wept.

“Of course,” he whispered now, looking away.

He stood up, walked back over to me. Took my Hand, Reader, that dead thing, and brought it to his Lips. How my Body stupidly caught Fire. I closed my Eyes, felt sick at the Warmth of his Touch melting me. The sudden, terrible Leap of my Heart.

“I should get to Class,” he said. And then he let go. I opened my Eyes.

He went to the bathroom and emerged in black Denims and a T-Shirt that read, very appropriately, New Order . Threw my Dress onto a chair near my Blazer, where Pony sat in shocked Silence.

“Let me go with you?” I offered. I knew I was behaving ridiculously quite like my Keepers. And yet I couldn’t seem to help it.

He shook his Head. He was putting his Trenchy C oat on now, gathering his Books. “I don’t know if it’s safe. Campus is pretty crazy today. Apparently there was another Murder last Night.”

“Oh yes?” My Turn now, Reader, to look awkward.

“Yeah, at some Frat Party. The same Frat we were at actually if you can believe it.” And he looked at me strangely. So strangely that I looked away. Mumbled that I could not believe it, and how terrible it was.

“Good thing we didn’t get killed, I guess.”

“Yes, good thing,” I murmured, looking back at him. He was staring at my Blazer hanging on the wall, where Axe was neatly tucked.

“Everyone’s pretty freaked out,” he said. “The Guy’s still on the loose apparently.”

“Is he?”

“Yeah.” He looked at me.

“Oh dear,” I whispered.

“The whole Campus is on semi-Lockdown Today. Probably swarming with Police and Reporters and stuff. It’s going to be a Circus. Might be safer for you to go Home.”

“Home,” I repeated and felt an Ache. Where was Home? Not the Attic. Certainly not the Greek house. And as for the Lost Place, there was no going back there. I did not know the way back. I looked at Jonah, his grassy earthy Eyes. There was the closest thing to Home I had found, Reader, but it was strangely forbidden now, beyond my Reach.

“Unless you have Class?” he was saying.

“ Class ?”

“Sorry I don’t know much about the Exchange Program. Maybe you’re the kind of Exchange Student who doesn’t have actual Classes?”

I recalled the absurd Lie my Keepers had told him when they were first escorting me to the Attic I shook my Head helplessly. “I’m not sure,” I said.

“Well, most Classes are probably cancelled Today anyway. David’s still keen to do Workshop though. I guess he figures if they cancelled Workshop for every Campus Killing, we’d never have Class, you know? And I just heard from Sam that Allan’s still going to do his Fiction Workshop too.”

“Allan is? Really?”

“Yeah, our Classes are right next to each other actually, which is cool.”

I looked at my Blazer now, hanging on its hook. The blue Velvet seemed to glow in the light of the Sun with a new kind of Purpose. My Blazer in which Axe was tucked. In the throes of my Love, I had forgotten all about how I must still Kill Allan. But now the Recollection sang through me. The Dark gripped my Heart, the familiar Refrain pounding through my Blood, briefly drowning out my Pain.

“I just remembered, I do have Class Today. Actually.” And there was a new kind of Singing in my Voice.

“Really?”

“Oh yes. A very important Class, in fact. So I should definitely go with you to Campus. Otherwise, I’ll worry about you. What with this crazy Axe Murderer on the loose,” I said. “You never know what might happen.”

Love, I have told you, made me a Liar. It also made me a Fool.

IX

I stood in the Rose Garden, just outside a building called Narrative Arts, waiting to Kill Allan. Was I waiting to Kill Allan? Or was I waiting for Jonah? Jonah to whom I’d just said good bye, my Heart skipping inside my Self. He was inside Narrative Arts somewhere, having his Workshop. This pained me to think about, Reader. But Allan was in there too, I knew, and this was a bit of a Balm to my Soul. For I was here to kill him, yes. Not to wait for Jonah, because that would be absurd after this Morning’s Happenings

Our Walk to Campus was strange, Reader. And our Parting even stranger. The School was indeed Chaos. A sea of Polices and Yellow Tapes and Blondy Women who looked quite like Goldy Cut, talking into Microphones, looking into Cameras. But they were not reciting Poet Trees into these Microphones. They were News Reporters and what they were saying, Reader, was far worse than Poet Trees. Possible Homicide Maybe Murder There was much Murmuring too, among the many student Bodies we passed. Jonah and I caught Snippets as we walked across the Green. “Alleged B eheading.” “Some fucking Psycho with an Axe.” “No Body found, can you believe it?” No Body? I thought. “With no Body at the Site of the supposed Crime and only one very inebriated student Witness, Police are really scratching their Heads,” said a Blondy we passed, almost as if she’d heard my Question.

But I saw his Body on the floorboards , I thought.

I saw his Head roll down the stairs. Perhaps his Body rolled away too, to follow the Head?

“You okay?” This from Jonah. Touching my Shoulder. Making my own Body catch stupid Fire again.

No. Not at all okay. Never okay again. “Oh yes.”

“I told you it would be Chaos here. I’m surprised they’re even letting us through. Maybe everyone’s just used to it at this point. This School used to really have a Problem with Murders.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. This one seems like a weird one though.”

“Very weird,” I agreed. Tricky for the Polices to crack, apparently. Possibly even a Prank or a Hoax, they said. Still the Psycho was on the Loose, a Blondy Reporter said, and everyone had better keep an Eye out for a giant Rabbit Man with an Axe who allegedly looked like Jacob Chamalord, Hollywood’s latest leading man. As a Blondy Reporter said this, she bit her Lip, as if to keep from smiling. Reader, I went cold at this Description For though I did not know who this Jacob was, I recalled his Name from the Attic Times. Goldy Cut would often utter it in a State of Sighing whilst ogling my Person Did I resemble him? I must tread carefully, I thought. Keep Axe hidden deep inside my Blazer lest anyone think I was this Psycho For everyone was looking at me, Reader, and this made me a little afeared Had I not properly hidden Axe after all? Did they suspect me? Would they point their Fingers and cry for the Polices to take me away? But no, they were only looking at me, more like how my Keepers did. I could feel Longings of various Degrees in all of their Eyes as I passed, Teachers and Students and Blondy Reporters and Polices alike. This should have made me feel Happy, these Eyes, despite the murderous Atmosphere of the Morning. But it did not Because Jonah’s Eyes were not on me, Reader. His Head was bowed, typing into his phone a lot. I sighed quite heavily, which made everyone around me sigh most dreamily. For I saw the Wrong Allan everywhere. His Face, Reader, plastered on every wall and lamppost and window and door. “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?” the Poster read in very large red Letters. And beneath these Words, a grainy Photo of the Monster with whom I had jumped at the Greek house. Tyler Fields was his Name. There was the black Patch over one Eye, he was grinning red facedly just as he had grinned at me in the red room. Missing , it read just beneath the Photo. Until a Body is found, we must presume he is missing only , a Police said to many nodding Reporters.

“Hey,” Jonah said softly. “You’ve been looking at that Photo a while.”

I realized we’d stopped in front of a lamppost and that I was indeed staring.

“Did you know him or something?”

I looked at the grainy Picture, the Eye that had smiled at me. Say no but mean yes. I shook my head. “No.”

“So weird,” he whispered, looking at the Photo himself now.

I turned to him. “What?”

“Well, just that we met outside that Frat house where that Guy supposedly got killed with an Axe. And you had that Axe. And that whole backstory about killing Someone. And….”

“And?” I said.

“…you do kind of look a little like Jacob Chamalord.” He looked at me and blushed. I smiled. Though I knew twas not good News that I did indeed resemble this Jacob, I was obscenely happy in this Moment, Reader. For clearly he, like Goldy Cut, had a Fondness.

I came in closer to him. “Do I?”

He looked so beautiful when he blushed, Reader. He nodded, still staring at me as if lost. Then suddenly he looked away. “I mean, I guess if I didn’t know better, I might think, you know, you did it.” He sort of laughed. Then glanced up at me, Reader, a little warily.

“How do you know I didn’t?” I asked, moving in closer still. His Face now inches from mine. Yet there was something mean and challenging in my Voice. A Coldness, I did not know where it came from. I expected him to run from me.

Instead, he held my Gaze.

“Because I know you,” he said. “And I know you would never do something like that. I mean it’s just…not you.” He said it hopefully, shaking his Head. His Eyes holding mine for the first time this Morning. Melting me. “Right?” he whispered.

I looked at him, his beautiful Face a little afeared, but wanting so much to believe I had not killed the Wrong Allan. I wanted to believe it too. I nodded. “Right.”

He sighed with Relief. Smiled. “I knew it. I mean you’re a Performance Artist, not a Murderer, obviously.” He leaned in closer, almost as if to kiss me. “Right?”

“Exactly,” I whispered, closing my Eyes. Grazing his Lips now.

“Plus it was Halloween,” he breathed. “A ton of people went to Frat Parties with real Axes, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure.” Liar, liar. Moving to his Ear. Brushing my Lips against the tender Flesh of his Neck. He gasped and pulled me to him. Kissed me once, passionately, then pulled away.

“Look,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t go around telling anyone just in case, okay? You don’t want to get arrested. A case of Mistaken Identity or something. It’s such a good thing you changed Clothes.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. I was wearing Jonah’s Clothes. One of his Trenchy Coats and what he called Cargo Pants as well as a T-Shirt that read The Damned ( he has very appropriately named Shirts , Pony observed). I still had my Pearls on, and the Blazer beneath the Coat, which I could not do without and which made me feel a bit more like my Self. Whatever that was, Reader. This Morning, I was no longer so sure

“Sorry my Clothes are so boring compared with yours,” he said now, and smiled.

“I hope I look okay,” I whispered. Still reeling from the Kiss, from him pulling away.

“You look beautiful,” he said. And once more, I saw a Flash in his Eyes of Yes, he did find me quite beautiful. So all Hope was not lost. He was still looking at me intently. I almost thought he would kiss me again, especially now that he believed I was not a Murderer. His Face still so close to mine in the Bright Sun, the Wrong Allan smiling at us from the lamppost. But he turned away, looked at his Phone. A text from Sam, he said. “She’s heading over.”

I asked if this Sam knew about Clothes.

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so. She always wears the same black T-Shirt and Jeans.”

She sounds very boring , Pony said from my Pocket. And I agreed, she did sound that way, and I almost said so. “How interesting,” I said instead, which was the Opposite of what I’d meant to say, Reader. I was caught between the Truth and not wanting to show it to Jonah lest he find it ugly of me. There was a Cattiness to my Voice, quite like the Cattiness of my Keepers when they spoke of each other. I did not like it and yet I could not help it. But Jonah hadn’t noticed. He was still smiling about Sam.

The Rose Garden had changed since my last Hop here, Reader, my first Happy M eanderings. Back, way back when I knew nothing of Love or even of Killing Allan. When I knew only the Sun and the Grasses and the taste of bright Flowers (until I met the Mind Witch ). Now the Flowers were fewer and they appeared shorter, huddled closer to the Earth, which looked quite cold The Blades of Grass appeared to have shriveled. But all seemed to shine vividly under the Sun, all seemed to whisper that I must Kill Allan. Except Pony who whispered, But what about Jonah? What about our Heart?

He’d waved to me as he made his way, at last, through the doors of Narrative Arts. Said I was welcome to come in, say hi before I headed off to my own Class. I’m sure David would love to meet you. My Peers really talked you up. Apparently he’s thrilled that you burned down the bar.

But I said, I had better not. I hate Poets, remember?

I remember, he smiled. Except me, right?

Except you, I said, the Truth of it breaking me. I watched him skip off to Class. Watched, like a Fool, even after he’d long disappeared through the Doors.

I did not have much Heart left in me to murder that Day It being quite broken Yes, this was becoming increasingly clear to me. For my Hand on Axe was unsteady. My Pelt shivered even in the bright Light of Day. My Feets were most wobbly in the cold Grass My Thoughts kept roving from Killing to Jonah. He was somewhere in Narrative Arts, I knew. Through one of these windows I might see his Face, his grassy Eyes that looked like Home. I wanted to run to him. I love you. Please forget this Sam person and I will forget Killing Allan and let us run away together. Perhaps with you, I might find the Lost Place. Yet I remained where I was, keeping an Eye out for Allan, gripping Axe. I knew not what Shape he would take this Time, so I really did have to keep an Eye quite peeled.

I was standing out there, so very torn, when I heard Voices, Reader. Familiar Terrible They made all my Pelt Hairs stand on end

“And what about the Park, Bunny? Did you look in the Park ?”

“No, I didn’t fucking look in the Park, Bunny . I was out in the Field, okay? I thought you were supposed to look in the Park.”

“Oh my god we’re never going to fucking find him this way.”

“Don’t lose hope, Bunny, okay?”

Oh god, Reader

They

Coming closer. Their awful Voices growing louder. The sound of crunching Grasses beneath their heeled Feets, the Clicks of which I knew in my Bones

“Wait did we check in the Garden? We should check in the Garden.” Goldy Cut, her Voice a wavering Razor.

“But we’re running late!” Murder Fairy, her Voice high with violent Panics.

“Oh who fucking cares, it’s only Workshop for god’s sake.” The gravelly Nihilism of Insatiable. Oh god

I dove behind the rose Bushes then, Reader. Shocked at the Speed at which I was able to go from standing forlornly in the Middle of the Garden to crouching quite low between the Fence and the Bushes full of ouchy Thorns. Through the fragrant Petals, I beheld them, my former Keepers How it made my Blood cold to see them again Goldy Cut in her Garden Dress with its many ominous looking Poppies. Here are some Petals for you , she would say to me, resting my Head in her Lap full of warped orange Flowers Murder Fairy whose bright Eyes brimmed with Murder and Worry in equal Measure Insatiable, smug and unwashed in her soiled Flannel and Denims, right now sniffing the Air as if she could hunt for me with that Implement. And of course the Mind Witch, her Dagger glittering on her Neck, her flowing white Dress whose twin was right now in Jonah’s rinse cycle. Her Eyes were closed and I knew she was looking for me with her Mind Witchery, the sharpest Huntress of all

“Well, he’s not here, surprise, surprise.” This from Murder Fairy. She looked strangely smaller than I remembered without her Axe. Yet still formidable. “I told you guys.”

“Oh like you knew,” Goldy Cut said.

“I did know! Just like I know he’s the one who beheaded that Boy last Night.”

Oh no

“Will you stop saying that, Bunny,” Goldy Cut said, putting her gloved Hands over her Ears. “He would never ever do such a thing. Don’t you talk about him like that!”

“I’m just stating facts, Bunny. He stole my Axe and the Boy was Axed. We need to go to the Police and tell them.”

“Tell them what exactly, Kyra?” Goldy challenged. “That he escaped our Attic and beheaded some Frat Boy? That we conjured a Man out of a…”

But she suddenly fell silent as a Siren screamed past. Conjured? I thought, in the Bush. Conjured me out of what? With held B reath, I waited for her to finish.

“Anyway,” she added quietly. “it’s absurd. Far out of the Realm of Possible Things.” And she laughed a wavering Laugh.

Conjured me out of what?

“Preposterous,” the Mind Witch whispered, her Eyes still quite closed.

“I mean if anything, he should have killed Allan. Not some rando Frat Boy,” Insatiable said.

“Exactly,” Goldy said.

“Well he still might,” Murder Fairy whispered. “And it’s our Fault. We have Blood on our Hands today, Bunny.”

“Oh relax, they didn’t even find a Body yet,” Insatiable said coolly. “So it might just be some Frat Prank.”

“But the Boy’s still missing, isn’t he?” Murder Fairy insisted. “Tyler or whatever.”

“Well he might be in on the Joke, who knows.”

“The Joke ?”

“Or maybe he ran away or something,” Insatiable offered. “Cracked under the Pressure of School.”

“Yes!” Goldy cried. “School is so hard, Bunny. I mean it’s sad if he’s missing, but it’s not Murder , okay? You’re so eager to make everything murder-y! And, I have to say, I find it very hard to take? Like, aesthetically.”

“They found a Bunny on the Scene,” Murder Fairy said at last, quietly.

They all looked at her now. The Mind Witch even opened one Eye, quite in the Way Mother likes to do. “They did?”

They did? I thought.

She nodded. “Hopping around the living room.”

“So what does that even mean, Bunny? That they found a Bunny.” Murder Fairy shook her Head. “I don’t know, Bunny, okay? But I think it’s…Weird.”

They grew quiet then. I did too, Reader. All of us quiet as the Roses in which I crouched. I chewed a Petal thoughtfully, taking in this News. Had I seen this Bunny of which they were speaking? I had been too busy jumping and then killing the Wrong Allan to properly take in my Surroundings And what did they mean when they said they had conjured me? Conjured me out of what?

Twas then I saw a Creature, Reader. Crouched in the Bush, right beside me. Long-eared. Small and white, a black Patch over his right Eye. His furry Body quite trembly. He, like me, was eating a rose Petal. Chewing quite thoughtfully, as though musing on its bitter floral Taste. His blue Eye was fixed on me with a kind of strange Recognition. Tis funny to say, but he looked like he knew me. And very funnily, I felt I knew him too.

“I don’t believe that for a fucking Second.” This from Insatiable. Shaking her Head.

“I’m sure that’s just Urban Legend, Bunny,” Goldy said, patting Murder Fairy on the Shoulder. “Rumor. Or just part of the dumb Prank, k?”

“You know these Frat Boys, Kyra,” Insatiable said, rolling her Eyes. “There’s a far more rational Explanation, I’m sure.”

“Rational,” the Mind Witch murmured in a low Voice, amused. Which afeared me I looked back at the Bunny beside me in the Bush, still chewing thoughtfully on his Petal, still looking at me. I know you I know you.

“Oh yeah, like what? You tell me.” Murder Fairy said again, challenging.

“There are Bunnies all over Campus, okay? It’s no Surprise at all that one hopped into a Frat House. Not out of the Realm of Possibility at all. The Truth is always more simple.”

“And what’s the Truth in this case, Bunny?”

Goldy Cut’s Chin quivered. “That he ran away from us. Because he hates me.” And she cried into her gloved Hands.

Murder Fairy hugged her now. Insatiable too, both of them vying for her Body. “Oh now Bunny,” they both said most soothingly, “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Oh no tis true , I thought from the Bush. Most definitely.

“My Heart is broken.” And she wept most piteously while they stroked her Shoulders.

“We know, Bunny. Us too.” Then they began to cry also. And funny to say, but Tears fell from my Eyes too. Which was odd, Reader, for I did hate Goldy Cut, I hated all of them. Still their Sadness strangely moved me. Reminding me of Jonah, my own broken Heart.

But then the Mind Witch suddenly opened her Eyes. “Shhhhh,” she said. “He is nearby.”

They looked up from their Weepings. “ What ?”

I locked Eyes with my Fellow in the Bush. Oh god.

And then Insatiable began sniffing the Air quite like a Dog. I froze, Reader. And beside me, the Bunny froze too. Oh god oh god. Twas then I heard a bit of Language coming from his Body. Heard it singing along my Pelt. We cannot leave here now. We must stay crouched in the soft Mud, among the Roses and the cold white Spores of withered Dandy Lions. We must pretend we are Dead otherwise we definitely will be.

I nodded. And the Bunny seemed to nod too.

“I feel I know you,” I whispered to him. “Why do I feel this?”

The Creature twitched its Nose, continued chewing the Rose Petal. He had no more Language to speak. Or if he did, I did not grasp it.

Meanwhile Insatiable, sniffing wildly, began to move toward us, Reader. The Bush where we were both crouched. I felt her kneel down in the Grass before this Bush. I could smell her deodorant of rancid Lavender, her cinnaminty Gums. I pressed my Self back against the Fence.

“I don’t see him,” she said at last miserably. “He’s not here.”

And how I breathed a sigh of Relief for both of us, my Self and this Creature to whom I felt a strange and powerful Kinship, a strange Knowing I could not Place, as though I had met him once before in some other Form. He continued to eat from the Bush, most oblivious.

“Wait!” Insatiable cried, her grabby Hands now poking through the Bush. “I think I feel something.” I pressed my Body further against the Fence, watched those Hands grasping the Air wildly, only just out of the reach of my Flesh But my Bunny Friend was still in the line of Fire. Move away from there , I tried to mind-speak to him. But he just stared at me quite stupidly, a kind of dull Animal Contentment in his Eye now. He continued to nibble the Petals like he was not at all afeared. I closed my Eyes for this was a Nightmare and I could look no more

“I got him,” she cried. Oh god, Reader Twas over My Freedom over and I must kill them now. But when I opened my Eyes, twas not me but my Bunny Friend that she had seized. And he allowed himself to be quite taken into her Arms.

Through the Bush, I watched Insatiable carry the poor Creature toward them, a horrible Triumph on her Face. The Bunny for his Part, was still eating his Leaf. Most innocent of the Horror into which he had hopped. Goldy Cut looked at the Creature in Insatiable’s Arms and frowned. “Um, what the fuck is this, please?”

“What does it look like, Bunny?”

They all looked at the Creature with their Keepers’ Eyes. “Where’s Aerius?” Goldy whispered. “I thought you said he was here!”

“Look,” Insatiable sighed. “I think it’s Time for us to move on.”

“ Move on ?”

“Aerius was way too out of our Control. He ran away from us for fuck’s sake. I say we cut our Losses and try Another.”

Another?

“Another?” Murder Fairy cried. “Um, I don’t think so, Bunny. I already have enough Blood on my hands, thanks. I’m so traumatized, I didn’t even do the Reading for today. I mean I did, but I totally skimmed the last Chapter.”

“I don’t want Another,” Goldy Cut screamed, shaking her Head. “I just want him back.”

Insatiable’s Face grew sad. “I do too. We won’t give up looking, Bunny. This is just for in the meantime, k? To see if we can. Don’t you want to see if we can?”

Can what?

Goldy Cut scrunched her Nose at the Creature. “This one looks Weird to me. What’s with that black Patch over his Eye? He’s not nearly as pretty as Aerius.” But her Eyes were on him all the same, eating his Leaf. They all watched him munch, a little hypnotized. All except the Mind Witch whose Gaze was fixed on the Bush, on me, I felt. I swear she saw me crouched there with what she called her Mind’s Eye, Reader

“Forget Aerius for now,” she said and I felt that Eye directly on me as she spoke. “Let’s try making Another first. I like this Idea. Very much.”

“Maybe if we make Aerius a Friend, he’ll come back to us. Like in Frankenstein or something,” Goldy Cut offered.

“But in Frankenstein, Viktor destroys the Friend, because he can’t bear making two of them, remember?” Murder Fairy said.

“Well, this isn’t exactly fucking Frankenstein, Bunny.”

I watched my Keepers leave carrying their new Spoil in their very white Arms, this Bunny. He kept his Eyes on me as he was led away. Looking a little afeared now, perhaps, but excited too. Still munching that endless Leaf. Twas in my Heart to run after him, Reader. Save him from himself, ascertain the meaning of our Telepathy, the strange Soul Connection we seemed to share. Why is it, Bunny, that I could hear your Words in my Pelt? And why had I felt that I knew his Face, that black Patch over his Eye? Had smiled with him? Jumped with him even, perhaps, in another Time? But my Body was quite frozen, Reader I could not move from the Bush Could only watch him being carried away

“Goodbye, Bunny,” I whispered.

Now alone in the Garden, I felt I should run and never look back. Far too close a call To hear their shrill Voices again, Reader To see their grasping Hands and hungry Keeper’s Eyes How it reminded me all too clearly of the Attic Times, the terrible Time of Revision I quite forgot about killing Allan at this moment, Reader, though I still held Axe in my Blazer, her Blade cold and sharp against my Heart. I’d been too caught up in the Preservation of my Self. Too confused by this Moment of Communion with the Bunny as well as some of the things my Keepers had just shared. About conjuring me. Having Blood on their Hands. What can it all mean? I asked Pony, pulling him from my Pocket. But he only stared at me with his large and ever sparkling Eyes. Perhaps he too had been struck Mute by these Revelations. You’re from some other World , Jonah had said to me. Oh god, more than anything I wanted Jonah. Hadn’t he kissed me, even when he was accusing me of Murder with his Eyes? I smiled at this Recollection, filled with Hope. I would wait for him to finish his Workshop. Share with him some of my Confusions and Fears. This Love for him that I felt deep in my Heart (I felt it so strongly that sometimes it killed the desire to Kill Allan). In his bedroom, with the Moon shining on us and his Dreaming Songs playing for us, his Eyes looking into mine, so full of Desire and Wonder, I might find the Courage. The Idea of Killing Allan lessened its Dark Grip on me the more I thought of Jonah. Yes, I would go to him now. Find him somewhere in Narrative Arts. Kiss him in front of the Poets, to show him I cared not what they thought. I would make him forget all about this Sam person.

But just as I rose from the Bush, I heard more crunching Grass, more Voices

Quickly, I ducked back down. Peeked through the Leaves.

My Heart leapt. Jonah! Oh how I wanted to run to him, Reader, but he was not alone He was with a tall frowning girl in Black.

Sam , Pony whispered.

“Sam,” Jonah sighed. “So glad I caught you running out of Workshop.” He was staring at her in a Way that hurt to see. She appeared oblivious, glared at the Ground. Snatched the Cigarette he extended, and he lit it for her, quite like he had lit mine. Tip to Tip, that she might suck it and catch his most erotic Fire. She did not appear terribly moved by his Gesture. She just took Jonah’s Fire and blew the Smoke straight out of her Mouth. He watched her do this, utterly entranced.

“Thanks,” she said coldly, quietly. Staring very hard at the Grass. Her long dark Hairs hung in her Face, a most bleak Curtain “I really needed to get the fuck out of Workshop, Jonah.”

He looked thrilled by her Recognition. “Oh me too!”

“It’s just driving me crazy Today.”

“You mean because of all this Killer stuff?”

She looked at him like he was mad. “Because of Them . The…Bunnies.” She closed her Eyes, took a drag as if the drag might take her away. “They brought a Rabbit to Class Today. An actual fucking Bunny, can you believe that?”

He shook his head, in Awe.

“They’ll probably sacrifice him later or something. Poor little Fucker.”

“Bunnies are cute.”

“Bunnies are terrible, Jonah,” Sam hissed. “Never forget that.” “Cute things can be terrible for us sometimes, I guess.” Cute things like you , said his Eyes. “That’s what makes them so cool.” The Look on his Face, Reader, when he looked at her Twas the Look on my own Face now, I knew, as I looked at him Twas the Look of my Keepers, when they looked at me Pain twisted up with such Longing “Speaking of cool,” he said, “do you um, like Jazz?”

But the Girl, Sam, was just staring into Space now, lost. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I’m afraid that I’m going to go crazy here, Jonah.” She shook her Head. “Like for Real.”

“Don’t be scared, Sam,” he whispered. “I’m here for you.”

Had I heard these Words, I would have died, Reader, of Happiness But this Sam didn’t seem to hear him at all She looked even more sad, more scared, if twere possible.

“I should head back, I guess,” she said.

“I’ll come with you,” he said, breaking me afresh.

She threw his Cigarette on the Grass and stomped on it, like it might as well have been his Heart. And he immediately followed her, stomping on his own Cigarette, which might as well have been mine My Heart, Reader.

X

After leaving the Garden, I was quite Inconsolable. Wandered lonely as a Cloud, through a Sea of flashing Lights and Police tapes, for I knew not how long. Forgetting about killing Allan, though the Blade was still cold against my broken Heart. There were less Blondy Reporters about, though a few remained. Seeing me shuffle past, their Eyes lit up.

“Would you like to comment on your Experience of Campus Violence?”

“Was this a Beheading or an elaborate Prank?”

“Did you know Tyler Fields?”

I shook my Head, walked hurriedly away.

The Sky had grown much darker and colder as I ambled further from Campus, through the Town and then beyond, to its surrounding Woods and Fields. At last, I neared a highway where cars and trucks roared past. That is a poor people car, I imagined my Keepers saying. That is a bus which you must never take.

The Lights of the truck stop swam out of the Dark, seeming to call out to me in my Loneliness. I moved toward them. Maybe I was drawn Inside by the smell of Sawdust and Alcohols and Oblivion Or perhaps twas the sad Music playing from the half open door.

The Place was Dark, empty but for the Barman himself. There was another Man sitting by the Bar too, his Hand cupped around a glass of rust colored Liquid. He wore a Hunter’s Cap, casting his gaunt, gristly Face mostly in Shadow. They stared at me when I entered.

I do not like this Place , Pony whispered. I have a bad Feeling . But I was already Inside, Reader, walking toward the bar.

“Hello there, Friend,” this Barman said. Smiled like he’d just been laughing. Friend.

I warmed at this Word. “Hello, Friend ,” I whispered.

“Getting cold out there Tonight?” He had long dark Hairs and a silver chain with a small glass vial round his Neck. This vial, I saw, was filled with tiny Twigs and dried Flowers.

“Yes, very cold.”

“Winter. She’s a coming.” The Man in the Hunter’s Cap sitting at the bar chuckled at this like twas a Joke he’d told. Which was strange, for I did not find it funny, Reader.

“What can I get for you, Friend?” the Barman said, nodding at me. Though I liked that he called me Friend, Pony was suspicious. We don’t even know each other , he whispered.

“Do you have a Goldy Liquid?” I asked him hopefully.

My new Friend looked puzzled. Then he smiled and held out the very Bottle. I nodded gratefully, watched as he poured me a most generous glass. Do you see, Pony ? I whispered. Look how generous he is with his Goldy Liquid. This Man is most definitely our Friend .

I don’t know , Pony whispered. I have a bad Feeling.

“You talking to someone in your Pocket there, Buddy?” Hunter’s Cap said. I perceived he was looking at me, smiling like he was ready to laugh again, why was he always ready to laugh?

Pony said nothing now.

“Yes. My only Friend in the World. Apart from you,” I added to the Barman, as he slid the glass of Goldy toward me.

He and the Barman looked at each other and laughed.

“Oh hey I hear that,” Hunter’s Cap said. “I got my only Friend in the world in my Pocket too, Buddy.” He patted his Jacket, where I noticed there was a B ulge. “Apart from him.” He nodded at the Barman and downed his glass of rusty Liquid. His Skin, what I could see of it, appeared quite rusty too, quite weathered.

Like his Soul , Pony whispered.

“Six bucks, Friend,” the Barman said to me, pointing to the glass of Goldy. Oh god, Reader I’d forgotten that one has to pay for Alcohols One has to pay for Everything in this World , the Murder Fairy often murmured. I reached into my Pocket and held out a Clump of Grass, suspecting he’d be outraged by my Offerings. Instead he looked at my Face. Quite taken with it, as many seemed to be. He put the Grass in his Pocket and thanked me, his Eyes on mine.

There at the bar, in the Cloud of sad pretty Music and Smoke, I drank and lost my Self in Thought. Turning over the day’s Strange Happenings. What my Keepers had said about conjuring me. From what? From what? That Bunny in the Bush, how I’d felt his Language through my Pelt. Jonah stomping on my Heart. And now? Now I did not know what to do, where to go. In truth, I no longer knew what I even was, Reader But I could not lose my Self entirely in these Reflections for the Men at the bar were laughing about something, and this Laughter kept me too aware of my Surroundings. I could feel them both watching me imbibe my Goldy Liquid as I stared at the darkening Night through the windows.

We should go , Pony whispered.

But I don’t know where to go , I told him.

“Better be careful, Friend,” the Man at the bar said. I turned to look at him in his Hunter’s Cap. He was addressing me apparently, I was his Friend also, and there was an odd Gleam in his pale Eye now. Like he might tell a Joke or commit a Violence and one would never know which until twas done. “Better be very careful,” Hunter’s Cap said to me, sort of playfully-seriously.

“And why is that?”

“Apparently there’s an Axe Murderer on the Loose out there,” he offered, winking at the Barman who only shook his Head.

“Is there?” I said, feeling the fact of Axe against my Heart. “How frightening,” I offered, without much Feeling.

Hunter’s Cap grinned. “Don’t want to get all chopped up now, do we?”

“No,” I said. But he was still looking at me, enchanted, amused, trying, I felt, to get to Bottom of me. His Eyes lingered on my Pearls. “What’s your Story, Friend?”

“My Story?”

Do not tell this Man, Pony said.

“Tis something I am trying to piece together,” I said. “Tis still…unfolding.”

And he and the Barman laughed. “ Tis ? What are you, a Student at one of the fancy Colleges in this Town?”

“More like an Escapee, I’ll bet,” laughed the Barman.

“Neither,” I said.

“Oh yeah? What are you then, Friend?”

I thought of Killing the Wrong Allan. Jonah on top of me, crushing his Lips hungrily against mine beneath the smiling Moon. The Rabbit I’d seen in the Bush, that Communion of Souls I’d experienced. I looked into my new Friend’s Eyes where there was no Communion at all, where only a strange, cold Laughter seemed always ready to erupt for Reasons I could not surmise. “I don’t know anymore,” I said. I finished my glass.

The Barman poured me another dram. I was about to hand him more Grasses to pay for this, but he refused them.

“Thank you,” I whispered, overcome by this Kindness. Suddenly I took his Hand. He looked at me grasping it. I could feel Hunter’s Cap watching us with new Interest.

“Do you ever have…Flashes?” I asked the Barman in a Whisper.

“Flashes?”

“Of another Life, a Lost Self you might have been? Another Shape you might have taken?”

He looked at the Grasses still cupped in my Palm, then over at Hunter’s Cap. They grinned slyly at each other now. “Maybe,” the Barman said.

My Heart brightened. “Really?”

“You mean like Reincarnation? Sure. I think in a former Life I was probably a Witch.”

“A Witch?” I thought of the Mind Witch

The Barman smiled. “Sure. Hanged for growing my Garden Herbs, concocting my Elixirs.” I looked at the small vial around his Neck filled with its tiny Twigs and Petals.

“And for being a fucking criminal,” Hunter’s Cap said. They both roared quite heartily. They were mocking me, I realized, my new Friends. I did not like their Laughter, Reader I had not made a Joke I had been asking in all seriousness. “I should go.” Yes, please let’s go , whispered Pony.

“Oh no stay awhile, please,” Hunter’s Cap implored. He patted his Pocket again, that strange Bulge. It made me increasingly uneasy. What did he have in there?

Certainly not a Pony , Pony whispered.

“Tell us about this Lost Self . What were you?” His Eyes were shining, waiting.

Let’s go let’s go.

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